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Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) Bernardino León briefs the press in Morocco. Photo: UNSMIL
From Morocco where he is facilitating the dialogue among Libyan parties, the United Nations envoy for the North African country has stressed that the coming week should be decisive to reach an agreement on the draft political proposal he recently introduced to bring Libya’s diverse stakeholders together and ensure peace and stability.
“We have this week. Let us try to make it possible this week. Let us not wait for more time. What is possible now will be…a solution that will seem difficult in the short perspective, but I am sure it will be the right one,” said Bernardino Léon, Special Representative and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL).
“Let us be flexible and constructive in these coming…days and I am sure we will be able to make it,” has said from the Moroccan city of Skhirat, where is facilitating the latest round of Libyan political talks based on the draftpolitical proposal he presented a little more than two weeks ago, and where yesterday he attended the iftar – the evening meal when Muslims end their daily Ramadan fast at sunset.
Mr. Léon encouraged the participants to take advantage of the occasion of Ramadan, hoping that the next ones will be “just to celebrate or to remember those hard days in which we had to negotiate the Libyan political agreement.”
The UNSMIL Chief added that all parties involved in the process must encourage their contacts, “all the people throughout the country”, to do “everything possible” to create the best environment for the agreement and to send positive messages about peace and reconciliation.
“There will not be real peace if there is not real reconciliation, and these weeks of Ramadan are the best time to pardon and only on this basis it will be possible to have a real and sustainable peace,” he stressed.
Finally, Mr. Léon mentioned that, during a conversation yesterday with forces from the city of Zintan, he was assured that every effort will be made to give back his freedom to Dr. Suleiman Zobi, a former member of the General National Congress in Tripoli, who has been kidnapped last year.
“And there are many other cases of people who have been arrested and this is the right time. We should not wait until there is an agreement and we start to implement the agreement. We should do these now. This is very important,” the Special Representative added.
