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A handful of top Arab diplomats met in the Libyan capital on Sunday in a rally boycotted by a powerful foreign minister who claimed the Tripoli-based government’s mandate was over.
Five of the Arab League’s 22 member states sent their foreign ministers to regular consultation meetings. They included the chief diplomats of neighboring Algeria and Tunisia, according to local media.
Some countries sent special envoys to the conference in Tripoli. Those who boycotted the rally included Egypt, which questioned the legitimacy of Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dubeyba’s government after Libya’s eastern-based parliament appointed a rival prime minister last year. .
The foreign ministers of the Gulf monarchies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were not in attendance, nor was the Secretary General of the Arab League Ahmed Abul Gheit.
Libya’s Tripoli-based government’s foreign minister, Najla Mangoush, said in televised comments that they “claimed the full exercise of Libyan rights” in the Arab League, adding that the pan-Arab organization Mentioned rotating leadership.
In September, Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry withdrew from an Arab League session chaired by Mangoush, protesting her representation of Libya at the pan-Arab summit.
Ahead of Sunday’s meeting, authorities in the Libyan capital gave civil servants a day off and blocked Mitiga Airport, the capital’s only functioning airport, and major roads around the luxury hotel where the rally took place.
Prime Minister Fasih Bashaga, who heads a rival government in the eastern part of the country, called the meeting a “farce” orchestrated by the Dubeiba government to claim Libya’s internationally recognized government. is. He welcomed those who boycotted the conference and called on Algeria and Tunisia to reconsider their positions.
Libya’s current political stalemate was compounded by the failure to hold elections in December 2021 and President Dubeiba’s refusal to resign. In response, parliament based in the eastern part of the country appointed Bashaga. Basaga has been trying to install a government in Tripoli for months.
A protracted standoff between the two governments erupted in Tripoli last year, threatening a renewed civil war after months of relative calm in the oil-rich country.
The North African country plunged into chaos after NATO-backed riots in 2011 overthrew and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gaddafi.
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