Moscow is prepared for “constructive” work with Libya’s newly selected interim leaders, the Russian foreign ministry said Monday. In a statement it said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov held a phone call with Abdul Hamid Dbeibah and Mohammad Younes Menfi to congratulate them on their elections Friday to the posts of interim prime minister and interim head to the presidential council respectively.
“Sergei Lavrov reaffirmed Russia’s readiness for constructive engagement with the transitional administration of Libya with a view to overcoming the protracted crisis in that country as soon as possible,” the Russian foreign ministry statement said. Lavrov also noted that Russia will focus on “strengthening cooperation in the interests of further developing the traditionally friendly Russian-Libyan relations”, the statement added.
Conflict-torn Libya embarked Saturday on a new phase of its post-Kadhafi transition after an interim executive was selected to lead the country until December elections following a decade of chaos. Dbeibah and Menfi face the task of trying to reunify the institutions of a state undermined by divisions between the UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and a rival administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar in the east. Moscow backs Haftar against theGNA in the conflict and has been accused of sending mercenaries of the Wagner Group private military company to join the fight. In December the European Union sanctioned Russia for what Brussels said was Moscow’s destabilising role in the country.
