UAE urges all Libyan parties to commit to political process, supports Haftar's LNA

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) on April 30 called on all Libyan parties to come to an agreement over the United Nations supervised political process to end the six-year-long civil war in the country, but at the same time renewed its support for the Libyan National Army, commending it for conducting anti-terror operations. UAE backs the Tobruk-based Libyan National Army and its leader General Khalifa Haftar in the ongoing civil war that started in 2014. 

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The Emirati Foreign Ministry on Thursday issued a statement where it slammed the Turkish military intervention in support of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) while commending the anti-terror operations carried out by the Libyan National Army. UAE also urged all Libyan parties to commit to the political solution based on the Berlin conference and expressed its support for the United Nations supervised political process. UAE, however, did not comment on Haftar's declaration that his army would take control, ignoring the 2015 political agreement that has been the basis of all international peacemaking process.

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Turkish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hami Aksoy while responding to the remarks made by UAE, called it an attempt to hide their two-faced politics and also accused the Emirates of providing aid to 'putschists' in Libya. Putschits are people who take part in a putsch, also known as a coup. Turkey backs the Government of National Accord, which is Libya’s internationally recognised government. However, the GNA's authority remains unrecognized by the House of Representatives, currently under Haftar's control. 

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Libyan civil war

As of January 2020, the House of Representatives controls the eastern Cyrenaica region and parts of the southern Fezzan and Tripolitania regions and Sirte. The Government of National Accord controls most of the coastal Tripolitania including Tripoli and Misrata. Meanwhile, the southern region is controlled by local tribal militias and terror organisations, such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, al-Qaeda, among others. 

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