Algeria Has Reservations About The IRINI Mission In Libya

Algeria is looking with suspicion on the European naval mission “IRINI” to monitor the implementation of the arms embargo to Libya, which entered into force on Sunday.

Italian Military Radar’s website “ItaMilRadar” published details of the first tasks of the operation, which was faced with a formal objection by the government of national reconciliation, which is internationally recognized, and Algeria considers it the only legitimate political body in the eastern neighbour.

“The Fairchild Dornier SA-227DC (N919CK) aircraft departed from Sigonella AB on Sunday morning and made 6 hours patrol mission off eastern Libya. The aircraft landed again at Sigonella Air Force Base on the Italian island of Sicily,” the same source said.

The IRINI mission aims to “support the implementation of the arms embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council on Libya, and it does so using sea and air means. Besides this main objective, the operation has a series of secondary tasks and will provide oversight to prevent illicit oil exports from Libya, and will build the capabilities and training of the Libyan and Marine Coast Guard, and will support the fight against the cells of trafficking in human beings”.

The first responses to this process came from the chairman of the Presidential Council of the Al-Wifaq Government (national accord), Fayez al-Sarraj, who had informed the chairman of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, about Al-Wifaq government’s objection to the mission.

Al-Sarraj said in a statement that was published by the Libyan Foreign Ministry’s Facebook page: “We received with great regret the news of the implementation of the IRINI mission, and we expected the European neighbourhood countries to implement Security Council Resolution n° 1970 of 2011 regarding the arms embargo to Libya”.

Algeria has not formally announced its position on the launch of the IRINI mission, but observers consider its position to be the one expressed by the Commissioner for Peace and Security Council of the African Union, Smail Chergui, who commented on this suspicious mission: “Any monitoring must be transparent and inclusive of all Libyan borders, after violating the arms embargo to Libya”.

The words of the Algerian diplomat, Smail Chergui, hide many of the allusions to international public opinion in general and the European in particular, and the countries that support the militia of the retired general Khalifa Haftar as well.

These hints indicate that the failure to subject the eastern, southern, and southeastern land borders to Libya with all of Egypt, Sudan and Chad, under international control and limiting them to the maritime borders, nullifies the process from its content, but rather from its credibility.

The Algerian rejection of this process is motivated by many backgrounds, including temporal and political ones. The European move came after their ally in the Libyan East, Khalifa Haftar, suffered a military setback that made him lose his balance and became threatened even in his main strongholds in favour of the legitimate government.

This data gives the impression that the IRINI mission is directed to stifle aid to the legitimate government in the opinion of Algeria and the international community, while the external supply lines for the leader of the so-called Operation of Karama are kept wide open across the eastern Libyan border, and this is considered support for one party at another expense in the Libyan equation, which increases the life of this crisis, which some claim to seek to besiege.

The African Union, and Algeria behind it, were not the only ones rejecting the IRINI process. Russia, through its permanent mission to the United Nations, demanded that the European mission should comply with Security Council Resolution 2292, which would raise the pace of pressure on those behind this suspicious process.