Alwaght- Following months of efforts and diplomatic negotiations by the new UN’s envoy to Libya Martin Kebler the reports suggest that the opposing sides have reached an agreement to form a national unity government. A peace deal was signed in Moroccan city of Skhirat, on December 16, 2015, between the two rivaling groups the Tobruk-based Council of Deputies and the Tripoli-based General National Congress with UN mediation in order for them to form a national government of Libya.
However, according to some analysts, reaching a comprehensive and sustainable agreement by the two sides remains in a state of uncertainty as some fundamental challenges, including powerful presence of the terrorist groups in the country and numerous internal disintegrations continue to exist.
With a regard to the record of disputes in Libya, the success of the recent peace deal is dependent to a couple of factors. First it must be observed that during the negotiations held in post-Gadhafi era how serious the negotiators have been in realizing their goals and demands and what privileges they have been granted and how much they have been committed to them. The recent years’ experiences show that the negotiators lacked the adequate will and seriousness, and the different sides have not kept committed to the announced agreements due to stay of several deep-rooted discords. This issue has roots in Libya’s political history and the legacy of Gadhafi’s era and the ethnicism which he encouraged. The western part of Libya, which is more populated than other parts of the country, has enjoyed further facilities and privileges in the time of Gadhafi because it accommodated the capital city Tripoli and the city of Sirte. On the other side was the eastern Libya which suffered from relative deprivations. Such deprivations in the present times are overshadowing and fueling the current disputes. In fact, the eastern side’s people, who sparked the revolt against Gadhafi, are demanding larger share from the power. Therefore, the differences in viewpoints in the Libyan community severely exist among the active political forces. Today there are two governments in Libya ruling the country. One is led by the revolutionaries and the other one is led by the Libyan National Army, which is headed by General Khalifa Haftar.
On the other hand, deep gaps remain standing between the liberal Islamists in one side and the fundamentalists and the revolutionaries on the other side. In addition to these political challenges, the presence of such terror groups as Al-Qaeda in the Islamic country Maghreb and ISIS in Sirte represent other significant hurdles which hamper a national Libyan reconciliation. Therefore, as long as these problems are not settled fundamentally, obtaining a durable compromise would be out of expectation. Along with the negative points, the positive points of the peace deal should be taken into account. In this regard, the national politicians’ will along with the will of the regional countries like Tunisia, Egypt and the transregional sides could prepare an influential ground for the political groups to achieve a comprehensive and sustainable accord for the country. The consequences of the crisis in Libya, which have appeared in the form of the refugee crisis and the terrorist attacks in Europe, have forced the European powers to seek a solution in order to curb the crisis and prevent the country from turning to a safe haven for the terrorists. In other words, the European leaders have decided to lead a political settlement for the Libyan crisis in a bid to prevent new African critical scenario. The significance of this issue becomes clear if we know that due to its susceptibility in Syria and Iraq, ISIS terror group is seeking to move to Libya and take shelter there. So the European countries are forced to adopt preventive policies to check more oncoming threats.
It seems that the recent agreement on forming a unity government to a large extent has the necessary transparency for proceeding with Libya’s political road map during the upcoming year timeframe, but in the course of implementation it has suffered some conflicting interpretations and differences which have left the national unity government fail to come to existence in practice. In the current stage, there is a greater will by the internal parties as well as the foreign sides to put an end to the prevailing situation, but the challenges and the complexity of the political conditions, which have emerged as a result of different tendencies of the relevant groups and movements in both sides and their reliance to some foreign powers, have set some hurdles ahead of the process of forming a national unity government, as fragile conditions would expectedly be laid ahead of the future steps. Anyway, formation of the national unity government is the only way existing to pass through the present crisis and to steer clear of immersing in a situation similar to that of Somalia, a way both sides must feel committed to.
