SRSG Kobler Remarks to Media after Libyan Political Dialogue members meeting in Tunis, 10 Dec. 2015

11 Dec 2015

SRSG Kobler Remarks to Media after Libyan Political Dialogue members meeting in Tunis, 10 Dec. 2015

SRSG Martin Kobler Remarks to the Media after the meeting of the Libyan Political Dialogue members in Tunis, 10 December 2015


This was the first time I meet the members of the Libyan political dialogue, and we had a very long session with all members of the Libyan dialogue ... I felt very encouraged by what I have heard...

I felt the consensus on two things:

The urgency to come to a rapid signature of the Libyan political agreement because of several reasons: the expansion of DAESH the terrible humanitarian situation, the question of the resources the country has, which should not be exploited.

The second consensus is not to open now the text of the agreement, to go ahead on the basis of the agreement.

Yes, everybody has some concerns, including myself, but this now the agreement which is on the table, and the Libyan political dialogue members are behind this agreement....

We will have another meeting tomorrow because we have been discussing for 6 hours the different aspects of the agreement. I distributed the agreement in its latest version because there was some confusion and it is very important that everybody is on the same page.

I found a big consensus not to open this agreement now because if you start opening it then it will be Pandora's box.

Everybody was in total agreement that the situation is urgent and one has to go for a rapid signature of this agreement.

I felt another consensus, that the UN facilitation has to go on, that nobody should go behind the back of any other participant of the political dialogue nor behind the back of the United Nations.

We have the Tunisian foreign minister here, and this was very encouraging. He had the same messages: this dialogue must continue to be UN-facilitated. I am very happy about this message of solidarity and I go with big confidence in our meeting tomorrow because we are going also to define the messages for the ministerial meeting in Rome.

The international community is very interested in this process, in particular the threat emanating from terrorism

There must be a legitimate government very soon. There must be a renewed legitimacy of the House of Representatives, and there must be a State Council in place.

The signature should be very soon. We will discuss this in Rome and then the date will be determined.