Joint Communique of the Quartet meeting on Libya
New York, 21 September 2017
1. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Libya, Ghassan Salamé, hosted a meeting of the Quartet in New York on 21 September on margins of the United Nations General Assembly, following the high-level event on Libya convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on 20 September 2017. The Quartet, which brings together the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the European Union (EU), and the League of Arab States (LAS), last met in Brussels on 23 May 2017.
2. The meeting served as an opportunity to highlight the Quartet’s collective efforts in support of the UN-facilitated political process in Libya.
3. The Quartet expressed its continued concern about the deteriorating security, economic, and humanitarian situation in Libya. It also expressed concern regarding the threat of terrorism, and underlines the urgency of providing support and early recovery assistance to areas recently liberated from IS.
4. The Quartet endorsed the UN Action Plan presented at the high-level event on Libya hosted by the UN Secretary-General, as reflected in the Chairperson Summary, and strongly encouraged Member States to support its implementation. The Action Plan lays out a Libyan-owned and Libyan–led process that is both inclusive and representative under the lead facilitation of UN.
5. In particular, the Quartet welcomed the political sequence outlined by SRSG Salamé encompassing first a limited set of amendments to the Libyan Political Agreement, followed by a National Conference and subsequently the adoption of the requisite constitutional and electoral framework for the holding of parliamentary and presidential elections within a year of the high-level event.
6. The Quartet also welcomed SRSG Salamé’s intention to convene the respective committees of the House of Representatives and the High Council of State in Tunis on 26 September 2017 to begin work on amending the Libyan Political Agreement and pledged support to those efforts.
7. The Quartet welcomed recent initiatives pursued by Member States in support of the political process. This included the bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Serraj and General Haftar hosted by President Macron of France on 25 July 2017; meetings between military delegations from Misrata and the Libyan National Army convened by the Arab Republic of Egypt on 20 and 31 July 2017; and the fourth meeting of the AU High Level Committee on Libya convened by President Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of the Congo in Brazzaville on 9 September 2017 where the Presidents of the Presidency Council, the House of Representatives and the High State Council met for an important exchange.
8. The Quartet resolved to continue to work together to strengthen collaboration between the four organisations and to ensure a common and complementary approach to addressing the challenges facing Libya.