LIBYA: INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL THREATS

As fighting heats up between rival armed groups and Russia increases its involvement, a power vacuum threatens to tear the country apart. (@Mezran in Foreign Policy)
A little more than one year ago Fayez al-Serraj, Prime Minister of the UN brokered Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), arrived in Tripoli. Since then hopes of a speedy recognition process of this government by the other political actors and the stabilization of Libya have faltered. The international community officially sticks to its support of Serraj, as, for example, the declaration of the G7 foreign ministers meeting in Italy in April has shown. However, there have been indications of a policy shift towards Eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Nicola Pedde
Director of the Institute for Global Studies and the Editor of Geopolitics of the Middle East, a journal of the IGS and “La Sapienza” University in Rome

Karim Mezran
Senior Fellow at the Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East at the Atlantic Council and Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University

Moderation: Gudrun Harrer, Senior Editor, Der Standard; Lecturer on Modern History and Politics of the Middle East, University of Vienna and Diplomatic Academy of Vienna