Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has met incoming Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah in Cairo and offered his country’s support in achieving stability in its troubled neighbour, the presidency said in a statement.
Egypt welcomed the announcement of a new interim government on Thursday – the latest United Nations-brokered effort to unite rival camps in east and west Libya – and is planning to reopen its embassy in the capital Tripoli. It had been one of the most prominent backers of eastern-based renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar, seeing him as the best option for securing its border with Libya. Haftar’s campaign to take control of Tripoli, in the west, crumbled in June.
El-Sisi affirmed “Egypt’s full readiness to provide all its expertise and experience … in a way that contributes to putting Libya on the right track and preparing the country to move towards horizons of construction, development and stability”, the statement said.
Egyptian intelligence sources and Western diplomats say Egypt’s attempts to work with Tripoli represents a recalibration of policy after the failure of Haftar’s campaign.
Egypt closed its Tripoli embassy in 2014, the year when many foreign missions shut during an intensifying conflict that saw rival parallel governments set up in the chaos that followed the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi after 40 years.
Turkey, a regional rival of Egypt and military backer of west Libyan factions, reopened its embassy in the Libyan capital in 2017. Dbeibah also visited Turkey last week.
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Source: Aljazeera
