NATO ready to help future Libya unity govt: Stoltenberg By AFP

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NATO is ready to help a future national unity
government in Libya but remains opposed to any
military intervention in the war-torn country,
alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said in an
interview published Sunday.
“If a national unity government is formed, we
are ready to help it and provide assistance,”
Stoltenberg said in an interview with Italy’s
Repubblica and several other European
newspapers ahead of an international conference
on Libya in Rome next Sunday.
However, “we are not discussing a major new
military operation in Libya, and I will not be
recommending it,” he said.
His remarks were published just hours before
Libya’s warring factions, who are holding talks in
Tunisia, said they had reached an agreement on
ending the political deadlock that has plagued the
country since Moamer Kadhafi’s overthrow.
Former colonial power Italy will host the
December 13 conference which is aimed at
preventing Libya’s total collapse and halting the
advance of the extremist Islamic State group.
Experts have warned that IS has been shifting to
Libya as the world focuses on its traditional
power bases in Iraq and Syria, taking advantage
of the chaos as rival militias and governments
battle for power.
But UN-brokered talks on the formation of a
national unity government in Libya collapsed in
October and have yet to resume.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi pointed to
the crisis in Libya as he sought to defend Rome’s
decision not to join international military action
against IS jihadists.
The north African country was thrown into chaos
after a 2011 revolt backed by Western military
intervention overthrew Kadhafi.
“If being a protagonist means adding to the
bombardments of others, then I say no thanks!
Italy already used this strategy in Libya in 2011,”
Renzi told the Corriere della Serra newspaper.
“Four years of civil war in Libya shows this was
not a wise choice. Today there needs to be
another strategy.”
Italy is on the frontline of a migrant crisis fuelled
by the conflict in Libya, which has become an
unpoliced launchpad for people traffickers
shipping desperate people across the
Mediterranean, frequently with deadly
consequences.