Libya: GNA Threatens to Sue Salame

Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), chaired by Fayez al-Sarraj, slammed Special Representative of UN Secretary-General Ghassan Salame for his recent briefing at the Security Council on the military and political situation in the country.

Sarraj, according to a statement distributed by his office, summoned the UN envoy “to deliver a protest note over untruths” in his report to the UN Security Council.

Libya’s High Council of State (HCS) also prepared a letter to respond to the statement of Salame, saying it will be sent to the Secretary-General and member states to mark out the misinformation about the current conflict in Libya given by Salame last Monday.

Salame’s briefing raises doubts about the neutrality of the UN Special Mission in Libya, added the HCS.

The Presidential Council’s command called also on Salame to provide a list of the extremists whom he said were fighting for the Libyan Army under the Presidential Council’s government command.

“We are afraid that Salame was intentionally repeating what the attacking forces were accusing the Libyan Army of,” read the statement.

It added that if Salame didn’t provide a list of the extremists he alluded to, then he would be considered as trying to defame the Libyan Army and Presidential Council’s government, hence, he would be sued for his false allegations.

For its part, the Ministry of Transport denied Saleme’s remarks about the military use of Mitiga airport, confirming the airport is only used for civil aviation as an international port.

The statement cautioned that repeated targeting of the airport affected civilian facilities and aircraft. It warned that targeting the airport endangers the safety of travelers and workers, obstructs the transportation movement, and causes great losses to civil aviation and transportation.

The Interior Ministry also issued a statement saying the SRGC had provided misinformation and fallacies about the conflict in Tripoli in his recent briefing at the Security Council.

It indicated that Salame took sides in his recent briefing for certain policies at the expense of objectivity and truth, which is a failure on the UN part.

On Monday, Saleme told the Security Council in a videoconference there were foreign mercenaries and extremist groups fighting in Libya. He raised the alarm over “the increasing frequency of attacks on Mitiga”, noting that several of these attacks have come “perilously close to hitting civilian aircraft with passengers on board.”

Salame urged the authorities in Tripoli to cease using the airport for military purposes and for the attacking forces to halt immediately their targeting of it.

In other news, Sarraj met in Tripoli with Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi to discuss the general situation of Libya, with a particular focus on the introduction of renewable energy in Libya and Eni’s activities in the country.

The meeting was also attended by the Chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), Mustafa Sanalla.

Descalzi assured Eni’s full commitment to its operational activities and projects in the country especially in the social area, particularly about the initiatives undertaken in the power generation sector, according to a statement issued by Eni.

Meanwhile, NOC declared force majeure on Sharara crude oil loadings on Wednesday, according to a document seen by Reuters.

The exact location of the valve on the pipeline was not immediately clear and NOC said: “unidentified perpetrators” were behind the valve closure.

The field, which produces 290,000 barrels per day (BPD), was shut down for a few days from July 19 after an unknown group blocked a valve on the pipeline to Zawiya in the Hamada area in western Libya.