Conference set for Sunday in Germany as general fails to agree deal to end fighting

This article is more than 8 months old

This article is more than 8 months old

Germany is to press ahead with a Libya peace conference on Sunday even though talks in Moscow ended fruitlessly, with Libya’s eastern strongman Gen Khalifa Haftar leaving without signing a ceasefire agreement to end nine months of fighting in the country.

The German foreign ministry said leaders and heads of state from 12 countries and four multinational organisations, including the United Nations, had been invited to Berlin on Sunday.

The meeting is going ahead despite a fresh outbreak of heavy gunfire in Tripoli and reports that one of Haftar’s chief backers – the United Arab Emirates – was resupplying Haftar forces. Haftar was flanked at the Moscow talks by advisers from the UAE.

The aim of the Berlin conference is to secure a collective pledge that external actors will end their interference in the country by refusing to send troops, arm the militia or fly drones that have caused mass casualties in a war zone centered around Tripoli.

Haftar’s abrupt departure from Moscow in the early hours of Tuesday was a setback for the international diplomatic push organised by Russia and Turkey.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan – who first brokered the Libya truce deal with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, last week – warned he would “teach a lesson” to Haftar if his forces resumed fighting.

The general and his allies were in Moscow on Monday for talks with the UN-recognised government headed by Fayez al-Sarraj and based in Tripoli.

Sarraj’s government has been under attack since last April from Haftar’s Libyan National Army, which is based in the east of the oil-rich north African country, with his own loyalist politicians.

The two sides agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russia and Turkey that took effect at the weekend and were in Moscow to sign a long-term agreement on how to police the ceasefire.

The talks raised hopes of a longer term end to the latest fighting to wrack Libya since a 2011 Nato-backed uprising killed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

But after seven hours of negotiations, only Sarraj had signed up to the agreement. Russian officials said Haftar’s delegation left without signing the deal. Haftar had a series of objections, including the lack of a timeline for Serraj to disband the Tripoli militia and distance himself from his Turkish supporters. Haftar says the militia are Islamists and terrorists.

By jilting the Russian peace efforts, Haftar has taken a risk, but probably knows that the two countries doing most to support him practically – Egypt and the United Arab Emirates – will not desert him. Both countries have been invited to the Berlin conference, amid European hopes that they will put pressure on Haftar to compromise. Serraj and Haftar are due to attend in Berlin, but if the fighting worsens in Tripoli, the chances of them attending will diminish.

“We will pursue our efforts in this direction. For now, a definitive result has not been achieved,” the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said at a press conference in Sri Lanka.

Russia, European powers and Libya’s neighbours “are working in the same vein and motivating all Libyan sides to agree rather than continue sorting things out by force”, Lavrov said.

Erdoğan reacted angrily, saying in a televised Ankara speech: “We will not hesitate to teach a deserved lesson to the putschist Haftar if he continues his attacks on the country’s legitimate administration and our brothers in Libya.

“The putschist Haftar did not sign the ceasefire. He first said yes, but later unfortunately he left Moscow, he fled Moscow,” Erdoğan said. “Despite this, we find the talks in Moscow were positive as they showed the true face of the putschist Haftar to the international community.”

Italy, once the leading external power in Libya, has been accused of failing to end the crisis, giving Russia and Turkey a chance to intervene. But Italy says its efforts have been hampered by European divisions and the arming of the key militia by external actors in defiance of a blanket UN weapons embargo.

Italy is trying to recover lost ground by offering to send about 300 troops to Italy to hep with a ceasefire, so long as the troops are sanctioned by Libya and the UN.

The Italian prime minister, Guiseppe Conte, said: “We will discuss it in Berlin and if there are the right conditions Italy is available. But we will not send one of our kids except in a security context and with a clear mandate.”

Since the start of the offensive against Tripoli, more than 280 civilians and about 2,000 fighters have been killed and 146,000 Libyans displaced, according to the UN.

Turkey and Russia’s diplomatic initiative came despite the countries being seen as supporting opposing sides.

Ankara dispatched troops – in a training capacity, it said – to support the UN-backed Government of National Accord in January in a move criticised by European powers and the US president, Donald Trump.

The GNA has signed agreements with Ankara assigning Turkey rights over a vast area of the eastern Mediterranean, in a deal denounced by France, Greece, Egypt and Cyprus.