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| Africa North |
| Dabbashi warns EU against dealing with Tripoli regime |
| 2015-06-04 |
| [Libya Herald] Libya's UN ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi has warned the EU that it must deal only with the internationally-recognised government in Beida and parliament in Tobruk if it wants a UN Security Council resolution on the Europeans' plan for military action in the Mediterranean against people smugglers to succeed. "The position of Libya is clear," Dabbashi has said in an interview with AFP. "As long as the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and some other countries are not dealing with the legitimate government as the sole representative of the Libyan people, they will not get any consent on our part." The draft resolution by the four EU members of the Security Council -- permanent members La Belle France and the UK plus Lithuania and Spain -- authorising the use of force inside Libya's territorial waters by an EU naval flotilla against the smugglers requires Libya to give its consent to such action. Ironically, in a rare display of unity, both the Thinni government and its rival in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... , have opposed the plan which would include destroying smugglers' boats to prevent them being reused. The prime minister of the Tripoli regime, Khalifa Ghwell last week described it as "colonial thinking" and "completely unacceptable in the modern world". The Europeans, he said, could not go back to the world of 1911 (the year Italia invaded and took the country from the Ottomans). The Libyans would defend its territorial waters and borders, he declared. |
| Posted by:Fred |