The UK is not ruling out the warlord Khalifa Haftar from a role in a future Libyan government despite his attack on the capital, the British foreign secretary has said as he reiterated calls for a ceasefire.

Jeremy Hunt told the Guardian: “We do not agree with what Haftar is doing. We do not think it is possible for Haftar to achieve a military victory, and as a government he will not be seen as legitimate by whole swathes of the country. So we want a political process.”

Asked if Haftar’s offensive in Tripoli had forfeited him the right to be a major figure in the future of Libya, Hunt said: “We have to be careful about making those kinds of judgments. We have not covered ourselves in glory with our policy on Libya. Let us face it, if we knew in 2011 we would be in the situation we are now we would be asking ourselves some searching questions, so we had better be careful about ruling people out and ruling people in. The right way forward is a a ceasefire, political talks and a political settlement”.

Britain appears to have shelved efforts to pass a UN security council resolution calling for a ceasefire, since Russia, the US and to a lesser extent France are sympathetic to Haftar’s claims that he is a strong figure determined to curb the criminal militia that has surrounded the UN-backed government of the prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj.

In a tour of European capitals this week starting in Rome, Sarraj is accusing Haftar of wrecking a unique chance to reach a UN-brokered deal involving a reunified government, with a military role for Haftar under civilian rule. Sarraj claims Haftar has no interest in Libya being a democracy,

Despite a UN call for a humanitarian corridor, Haftar this week ordered his troops to fight harder through the month of Ramadan to wipe out the opposition. The fighting has so far displaced 50,000 people, killed more than 400 and led to the destruction of parts of the south of Tripoli.

In a long interview in Le Figaro, the French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, a long-time sympathiser of Haftar, expressed regret that he lost patience with the peace process and mounted his attack on Tripoli, The bulk of his criticism was directed at what he described as the criminal gangs surrounding Sarraj, a narrative that Haftar’s backers have assiduously assembled in the face of mixed evidence. Le Drian accepted that Haftar had miscalculated on expecting some of the militia to defect to his side.

There is astonishment among Sarraj’s advisers at the lack of criticism of Haftar’s methods from most of the international community, apart from Turkey and Qatar. Taher al-Sonni, the political adviser to Sarraj, said on Twitter that Haftar had come from thousands of kilometres away to destroy a political process.



