Messahel: “Disasters in Syria, Iraq and Libya occurred as a result of foreign military interventions”

The Minister of Maghreb Affairs, the African Union and the League of Arab States, Mr. Abdelkader Messahel, announced the organization of a meeting of Libya’s neighbors on May 8 in Algiers as part of efforts to hammer out a political solution to the crisis now besetting Libya.

“Algeria will host on May 8 in Algiers the 11th session of the neighboring countries of Libya,” Mr Messahel told AFP on Monday. “This is a very important issue,” he said. The upcoming broad-based meeting will also focus on how best to secure the region from all hovering threats, he added.

“Security is a common problem and if we want to thrash out a political solution in Libya, we must seriously address the security of the whole region,” he said, stressing the importance of a “political consensual solution among Libyans themselves thus clearing the way for the setting up of strong Libyan institutions, a unified army and unified security services in order to foster retrieved peace and stability in Libya” .

On the other hand, Mr Messahel referred to the manifold threats in the region, especially “instability in our immediate border zone in south-west Libya, which is beset, he said, by the nefarious activities of terrorist groups, criminal organizations, illegal immigration and organized crime” .

He thus called on all countries in the region to “consult one another and work closely together in a bid to stamp out these scourges”.

The Minister of Maghreb Affairs stated that Algeria holds three important messages: “The first is that the solution to Libya’s crisis should not be military, but political. The second concerns the support of the Libyan people in their fight against terrorism and the latter on national reconciliation” .

He pointed in this line to Algeria’s steadfast doctrine marked by  the belief in its firm principle, not to interfere in other States’ internal affairs and considered that the chaos and disaster occurring in Syria, Iraq and Libya came as a natural consequence of foreign military interventions in these three countries.

The 11th session of the neighboring countries of Libya is part of the efforts meant to support the political solution through an inter-Libyan dialogue inside Libya. In May 2014, Algeria hosted the first session on the mechanisms of the neighboring countries of Libya on the sidelines of the Ministerial Conference of Non-Aligned Countries. 

They declared to this effect that a consensual political settlement of the crisis will be the sole guarantor of the unity and sovereignty of Libya and the cohesion of its people.