He also said that Paolo Gentiloni’s main concern was the situation in Libya and that during an earlier meeting with US Defense Secretary James Mattis he pledged Italy’s across-the-board support for Washington, including in containing the imaginary “Russian threat.”
“The bottom line here is Libya which the United States wants to snap up as soon as possible,” Cucco said, adding that Washington was mostly worried by Russia’s intervention in Libya and its support for Libyan National Army General Khalifa Haftar.
“According to some sources in Libya, the US has long been trying to carve up the country, but with little success. That’s why it can barely stand the role Russia is playing in ending the crisis in Libya,” Cucco emphasized.
In March, Libya’s embattled Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj asked the UN, the EU and the League of Arab States to intervene and prevent a new flare-up in the civil war, which has ravaged the North African country since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi.
Fayez al-Sarraj’s UN-backed government, based in Tripoli, has been struggling to gain control against the Tobruk-based House of Representatives led by General Haftar, which controls the country’s east. General Haftar has been playing a key role in eastern Libya since his forces scored a series of victories against Islamist militants and seized several oil terminals in the north.
“And now they pretend that nothing has happened and talk about a political solution to the crisis in Syria where, helped by Russia, the government forces have managed to win back most of the country’s territory,” he noted, adding that important as it was to reach a political solution to the crisis, destroying the terrorists with military force would still be a better way to avenge the death of their countless victims.
Meanwhile, representatives of Libya’s warring governments meeting in Rome on Monday, clinched an agreement to end months of fighting in a deal brokered by Italy.
The two delegations will resume their talks in Rome later this week.
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