President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi arrived to Germany on Saturday to represent Egypt in the peace conference in Berlin which is set to be held on Sunday to support the efforts of UN Secretary-General António Guterres and his Special Representative Ghassan Salamé to end the conflict.
Fayez Al-Sarraj, the head of Libya’s UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, and Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) will participate in the conference.
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council; the US, Russia, the UK, France, and China, will attend the conference. Italy, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt, Algeria, and the Republic of the Congo will also participate in the meeting.
Berlin’s meeting comes following a failure of negotiations in Moscow where Libya’s warring leaders Al-Sarraj and Haftar met for peace talks.
Moscow’s meeting came in accordance with the agreement reached between the presidents of Russia and Turkey 10 days ago, to announce a ceasefire in Libya from Sunday 12 January, the call was accepted by the Libyan parties at that time, but the Turkish side announced on Thursday that the LAAF continued attacking Tripoli.
Following the meeting, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov announced that the Libyan rivals are not ready to work together at the time.
A week ago, Al-Sisi discussed the Libyan crisis with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a phone conversation. During the call, Merkel briefed Al-Sisi on German efforts to reach a political solution to the Libyan crisis.
The two leaders exchanged points of view regarding the latest updates in Libya and their impacts on the region.
According to a statement from the Egyptian presidency, Al-Sisi and Merkel agreed that the political solution of the crisis should include its political, economic, security, and military concerns as well as preventing illegitimate foreign interventions in Libyan affairs.
About a month ago, Ankara and GNA signed two memorandums of understanding to demarcate maritime borders between Libya and Turkey in the Mediterranean, in a step that angered Egypt, Greece, and Israel. Days after that, the Turkish parliament approved a resolution to deploy troops in Libya upon the GNA’s request to support the UN-backed government against the LAAF, which is currently supported by Egypt, and the UAE.
