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By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 5 March 2015:
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Al-Dairi and his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Judeh had talks today on collaboration . . .[restrict]in combating terrorism and extremism, as well as on a number of other bilateral issues.
Dairi was in Amman as part of the delegation led by Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni which went there yesterday. Dealing with terrorism was a major point of discussion in the talks the Prime Minister had with both King Abdullah and with Jordanian Premier Abdullah Ensour.
In the foreign ministerial discussions today, Judah repeated yesterday’s assurances made by both the King and Ensour that Jordan would help Libyans “achieve their expectations to build their country.” It would put all its experience “at the disposal of the Libyans”, according to the Jordanian news agency Petra.
Libya’s request to the UN that it be allowed to import arms to fight Islamic State (IS) forces and support from Jordan on the issue are also believed to have been a main topic of discussion.
Jordan, currently one of the ten non-permanent members of the Security Council, has actively supported moves at the UN to end the arms embargo on Libya. Last month, it tried to persuade the Council to lift the embargo against the Libyan government and at the same time step up measures to halt the flow of weapons to the militants. However, its draft resolution to that effect failed in the face of opposition from a number of members, including the US and UK. These took the view that no munitions should be supplied to Libya until there is a government of national unity in place.
The Thini government has now submitted a request to the UN’s Libya sanctions committee for an embargo exemption so that it can import armaments and aircraft to fight the terrorists. The list includes 14 MiG fighter planes, seven helicopter gunships, 150 tanks, 150 armed personnel carriers, 10,000 grenade launchers, plus mortars and ammunition.
The weapons would be supplied by the Czech Republic, Serbia and Ukraine.
An announcement about the planned purchase was made by Libya’s UN Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi speaking to the Security Council yesterday. Insisting that the fight against IS was urgent and that Libya could not wait for the outcome of the dialogue talks, he added that the “the Libyan army is ready to accept an observer to ensure that the weapons approved by the committee are in effect delivered to the official Libyan army.”
Lobbying members of the Security Council is seen as crucial and Jordan would clearly have a primary role.
The request will be automatically approved, providing there are no objections from any of the other 14 members by 3pm EST (8pm GMT) on Monday. [/restrict]
