Senior Italian Diplomat Says Russia, Egypt and Turkey Should Decide on Libya

Jan. 9, 2020 (EIRNS)—Giampiero Massolo, a career diplomat and former ambassador to Moscow, former director general of the Foreign Ministry, and former coordinator of Italian intelligence in the prime minister’s office, currently head of Fincantieri shipyards and chairman of the Milan-based Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), has called on Italy, France and Germany to work on those countries which have influence on the Libyan factions in order to stabilize the situation. “The crisis can be solved only from the outside, by acting on the external forces that influence the two factions,” Massolo said, listing Egypt, Russia, Turkey, and other countries.

Massolo said that speaking to the two factions—the Government of National Accord of Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli and the Libyan National Army of Gen. Khalifa Haftar—will produce no result, and he further expressed skepticism regarding the EU as an institution.

Massolo was interviewed on the Raitre morning political talk show “Agorà,” in the context of reports about meetings in Rome and Cairo yesterday. In Rome, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had invited both Sarraj and Haftar, but when Sarraj was en route and learned that Haftar had already arrived and was being received before him in Rome, he reversed course and flew back to Tripoli.

In Cairo, a meeting on the Libya crisis among the Foreign Ministers of Italy, France, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus ended with no joint communiqué. In a letter to the daily La Repubblica, Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio wrote “we have expressed more than one perplexity regarding the final declaration of the summit, which appeared to be a serious imbalance against the government of Prime Minister Sarraj recognized by the United Nations.”

Both Rome and Cairo meetings are seen by the opposition and the media as a failure of the Italian government.

Before the Cairo meeting, Di Maio had met in Istanbul with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, with whom he agreed on “the opportunity of opening a consultation channel with Turkey involving Moscow as well.”