Libyan peace process


The Libyan peace process is a series of meetings, agreements and actions that aim to resolve the Second Libyan Civil War and the coexistence of rival governments since 2021. Among these were the Skhirat agreement of December 2015 and the plans for the Libyan National Conference in April 2019 that were delayed because of the 2019–20 Western Libya campaign.
In July 2019, Ghassan Salamé, the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, proposed a three-point peace plan, to consist of a ceasefire, an international meeting of implicated countries for enforcing the arms embargo and an internal Libyan conference composed of economic, military and political "tracks". A several-day ceasefire took place on Eid al-Adha in mid-August 2019 and a ceasefire was declared by both the Government of National Accord and the Libyan National Army to start on 12 January 2020. A conference between representatives of Mediterranean Basin powers implicated in the Libyan armed conflict as well as Algeria, the Republic of Congo and major world powers took place in Berlin on 19 January 2020, declaring a 55-point list of Conclusions, creating a military 5+5 GNA+LNA followup committee, and an International Follow-up Committee to monitor progress in the peace process. In the intra-Libyan component of the 3-point process, the economic track was launched on 6 January 2020 in a meeting in Tunis between a diverse selection of 19 Libyan economic experts. The military track of the intra-Libyan negotiations started on 3 February with the 5+5 Libyan Joint Military Commission meeting in Geneva, between 5 senior military officers selected by the GNA and 5 selected by the LNA leader Khalifa Haftar. A major aim was to negotiate detailed monitoring to strengthen the 12 January ceasefire. The intra-Libyan political track was started on 26 February 2020 in Geneva. Salamé resigned from his UNSMIL position in early March 2020.
A 21 August 2020 announcement by GNA leader Fayez al-Sarraj and Aguila Saleh for the LNA declared a ceasefire, lifting of the oil blockade, the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections in March 2021, and a new joint presidential council to be guarded by a joint security force in Sirte. Followup meetings took place in Montreux on 7–9 September with support from UNSMIL and the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and, between five GNA and five House of Representatives members on 11 September, in Bouznika. Both meetings appeared to achieve consensus.
The three-track intra-Libyan negotiations, chaired by Stephanie Williams of UNSMIL, continued following the August ceasefire and September Montreux meeting, with the political track evolving into the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, and the military track leading to a 23 October 2020 agreement on a permanent ceasefire.

2015 Skhirat agreement

During the first half of 2015, the United Nations facilitated a series of negotiations seeking to bring together the rival governments of Libya and warring militias tearing Libya apart. The U.N. representative to Libya reconvened delegations from Libya's rival governments on 8 June 2015 to present the latest draft proposal for a unity government for the war-torn country. After a warning one week earlier that the country was running out of money and had risked ceasing to be a functional state, Bernardino León urged at a ceremony in Morocco that the Libyans approve the fourth version of the proposal. On 8 October 2015, Bernardino León held a press conference in which the names of several potential members of a unified government were announced.
In November 2015, The Guardian claimed that Bernardino León's neutrality had been compromised by his having negotiated and accepted a £1,000-a-day job to head a thinktank in the United Arab Emirates during the time of his role as the main UN peace negotiator in Libya.
A meeting between the rival governments was held at Auberge de Castille in Valletta, Malta on 16 December 2015. The meeting was delayed for a few days after the representatives from the Tobruk government initially failed to show up. The leader of the Tripoli government, Nouri Abusahmain, announced that they "will not accept foreign intervention against the will of the Libyan people," while the leader of the Tobruk government Aguila Saleh Issa called on the international community to "allow time to form an effective unity government". Representatives from both governments also met officials from the United Nations, Italy, the United States and Russia in a conference in Rome.
On 17 December 2015, delegates from both rival governments signed a peace deal backed by the UN in Skhirat, Morocco, although there was opposition to this within both factions. The Government of National Accord was formed as a result of this agreement, and its first meeting took place in Tunis on 2 January 2016.
On 17 December 2017, general Khalifa Haftar declared the Skhirat agreement void.

2018 Palermo Conference

The Palermo Conference was a two-day international conference which took place in Palermo, Italy on 12–13 November 2018 to support the holding of the Libyan National Conference and national elections in 2019.

2019 Libyan National Conference

A meeting, called the Libyan National Conference, was planned in Ghadames for organising elections and a peace process in Libya. The conference was prepared over 18 months during 2018 and 2019 and was planned to take place 14–16 April 2019. It was postponed in early April 2019 as a result of the attack on Tripoli by the Libyan National Army under the command of Khalifa Haftar.

[|Salamé three-point peace plan]

On 29 July 2019, Ghassan Salamé, head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, proposed a three-point peace plan to the United Nations Security Council, which would "require consensus in and amongst the Member States who exert influence on the ground" and require Libyans "to listen to their better angels" rather than " the wars of others and in so doing their country." Salamé resigned from his UNSMIL position in early March 2020, stating that the governments of countries involved in the Libyan conflict had failed to support the peace process, with numerous violations of the arms embargo.
Salamé's plan included:
  1. a truce between the Government of National Accord and Libyan National Army and their associated militias on Eid al-Adha, along with confidence-building measures such as prisoner exchanges, releasing arbitrarily detained prisoners and exchanging the remains of victims of the conflict;
  2. an international meeting of countries implicated in the conflict, to stop the fighting, implement the legally existing arms embargo of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, and promote the following of international human rights law;
  3. a Libyan meeting similar to the originally planned Libyan National Conference; which should include three tracks:
  4. * an economic track, which started on 6 January 2020 among 19 diverse Libyan economic experts meeting in Tunis, and continued with a 9–10 February Cairo meeting which defined the terms of reference to create a Libyan Expert Economic Commission;
  5. * a military track, which the 5+5 Libyan Joint Military Commission started during 3–8 February 2020 in Geneva, and continued 18–23 February in Geneva leading to a draft ceasefire agreement; and
  6. * a political track for negotiation by 13 HoR members from the Tobruk and Tripoli based groups, 13 HCS members and 14 independents, which started with 20 out of the 40 participants on 26 February in Geneva.

    Ceasefires

The first point of the Salamé three-point peace plan is a ceasefire.

Eid al-Adha truce

A truce took place on Eid al-Adha in mid-August 2019. Salamé described it as a "substantial reduction in violence along the main fronts in southern Tripoli and elsewhere" with "some violations" and that "broadly speaking, the truce held for the duration of the Eid festivities." Salamé stated to the UNSC that UNSMIL was working on encouraging confidence-building measures and a longer term ceasefire.

12 January 2020 ceasefire

In early January 2020, Turkish and Russian leaders proposed a Libyan ceasefire starting on 12 January. Russian president Vladimir Putin contacted United Arab Emirates and Egyptian leaders to pressure Haftar into accepting a ceasefire from the side of the LNA. An LNA spokesperson stated on 12 January that the LNA would implement the ceasefire. The Libya Observer interpreted the LNA's decision to be a result of Russian pressure. Both sides claimed to have implemented the ceasefire, and that the other side had violated it.
On 15 January, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar stated that although Haftar had not signed a ceasefire deal in Moscow that al-Sarraj had signed, it was "too early" to judge if the ceasefire had failed. Libya Herald reported a "relative calm" with "some ceasefire violations" each day since 12 January. On 16 January, German representatives stated that Haftar was committed to the ceasefire.
On 30 January, UNSMIL had documented 110 violations of the 12 January ceasefire.

Berlin conference

The second point of the Salamé three-point peace plan is to stop the arms flow into Libya, with an international conference to pressure countries implicated in the conflict to stop fuelling it.

Preparations

On 4 September 2019, Salamé stated to the UNSC that he had visited several countries in the region with the aim of organising an international conference that would fulfil the second element of his peace plan. He stressed that a central theme of the meeting would be respect for the arms embargo, a commitment to non-interference in Libya, and a commitment to supporting Libyans' view of the conflict and Libyans' preferences for a political solution to the conflict. Salamé argued that "the idea that war should be given a chance and that a military solution is at all possible is quite simply a chimera." In mid-September, a preparation meeting was held in Berlin between representatives of Germany, the United States, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, the Arab League, the European Union, and the African Union. According to Michel Cousins, as of early October, the plan was that no Libyans would participate in the conference, and participation of Qatar, Algeria and Tunisia remained unclear. On 8 October, Salamé stated that all countries concerned had to be invited "without any exclusion".

The third Senior Official Meeting in preparation for the Berlin meeting took place on 21 October. On 27 October, during a visit by the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas to Zuwara to discuss preparations for the Berlin conference, Salamé stated, "The Berlin conference efforts are very serious and are backed by very significant stakeholders. There must be a committee that would be tasked with following up on the implementation of all understandings and this is something all previous conferences have lacked." The Libyan Foreign Minister, Mohamed Taha Siala, said that there should be a ceasefire and a retreat of LNA forces before negotiations. Maas stated that the peace process should be conducted without foreign intervention. The fourth Senior Official Meeting was planned for 20 November. Concrete aims of the Berlin meeting included a formal communiqué of intended actions, an operational annex, and the creation of a committee to work with UNSMIL in implementing the aims of the communiqué and in " a fundamental role in terms of ensuring respect for a ceasefire and better implementation of the arms embargo."
At the fifth preparation meeting on 10 December 2019, two documents were "to a very large extent ready" to be proposed for signature by the political leaders expected to participate in the Berlin conference.