CAIRO – Rival political leaders in Libya announced a direct cease-fire on Friday, calling for talks to demilitarize Sirte, the coastal city that has become the focus of international efforts to break the stalemate conflict in the oil-rich, but dysfunctional nation of North Africa.
The announcement was welcomed by the United Nations, the United States and other Western countries fearing to contain growing Russian and Turkish influence in Libya, which has been in conflict since its longtime ruler, Colonel Muammar el- Qaddafi, killed and killed almost a decade ago in Sirte, his birthplace.
The UN-backed government in Tripoli and Aguila Saleh, the head of a rival parliament in eastern Libya, simultaneously announced a ceasefire in coordinated announcements. It was a rare positive development in a notoriously chaotic war that was lessened this year by widespread foreign interference. But skepticism was overwhelming about any possible breakthrough.
Analysts warned that, like an international conference in Berlin last January aimed at pulling Libya out of its political and military quarters, the chances on the cease-fire for success are deeply uncertain.
Notably, there was no immediate reaction from Khalifa Hifter, the military commander who is the main fighter in the recent fighting, as two of his most powerful foreign supporters, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.
“I’m not sure I would mention this political progress myself,” said Wolfram Lacher, a Libyan expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “For now, they’re just explanations with a lot of caveats, conditions and desirable thinking.”
However, the United Nations’ acting envoy, Stephanie Williams, called the coordinated announcement a sign of political ‘courage’, adding that she hoped it would eventually lead to the departure of all foreign forces and armies.
The National Oil Company also welcomes the announcements in a statement, expressing the hope that the oil fields could reopen low since January, when Hifter’s lords closed them as part of an effort to put pressure on his opponents in Tripoli.
Since the beginning of July, rental houses with the Wagner Group, a Kremlin-affiliated company, have been in position over some of the country’s largest oil fields, and have drawn criticism from US officials who openly feared that Russia would use its influence in Libya to to establish military bases there.
The maneuvers are the latest sloppy chapter in a conflict that has been going on since the death of Colonel Qaddafi during the Arab Spring in 2011. Within a few short years, Libya was torn between rival armed factions, organized by clan, city or ideology, most of which supported by powerful foreign sponsors.
In recent years, Mr Hifter, a one-time CIA operative supported in the eastern city of Benghazi, has been the main driver of the fighting. In addition to the Emirates and the Russians, he also received help from Egypt, Jordan and France.
The UN-backed government in Tripoli, the capital, is led by Fayez al-Sarraj and demands most of Turkey, with some support from Qatar.
In April 2019, Mr Hifter launched a joint campaign to capture Tripoli, supported by armed drones and missile systems supplied to Emirati. But the attack stopped in January when Turkey deployed its own drones, such as hundreds of Syrian mercenaries, in support of the Tripoli government.
In June, Turkish support troops forced Mr Hifter and his Russian allies to travel hundreds of miles from Tripoli to Sirte on Libya’s Mediterranean coast.
In recent weeks, after months of stalemate in Sirte, German and US diplomats have lobbied on both sides to accept a United Nations proposal to establish a demilitarized zone around the city, as a first step in broader peace talks.
That initiative is also supported by Egypt and Turkey, who are otherwise bitter regional rivals.
Although President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt is firmly in Mr Hifter’s camp, he has appeared to secure his bets since the collapse of the Tripoli offensive in June by openly encouraging Mr. Saleh, who is at the East-based parliament of Libya.
Mr Saleh has no military forces but enjoys broad tribal support in eastern Libya, where he has a reputation as an agile political operator. However, Western and United Nations officials have accused Mr Saleh of opportunism for deviating from promises made during earlier peace talks.
On the other side of the war, Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has expressed qualified support for Sirte’s demilitarization.
Tarek Megerisi, a Libyan analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it was “quite an achievement” to vote Egypt and Turkey on everything. But, he added, the cease-fire announced Friday would have limited impact on the ground, as the front lines around Sirte have been quiet for weeks.
Prospects for diplomatic success, he said, will depend in part on Mr Hifter.
“While this is a pleasant surprise, it still does not change anything materially,” Mr Megerisi said. “Rather, it sets up the upcoming negotiations.”
Those negotiations will also be governed by the complex interests of the foreign sponsors of the war. While Egypt is apparently looking for a way to escape the conflict, the leader of the Emirates, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed, is seen as a more prisoner of war figure.
Russia’s President Vladimir V. Putin has sought to distance himself from the conflict, at least in public, despite protests from US military officials who have accused him of deploying fighter jets in favor of Mr Hifter.
For Turkey, the war is also part of a broad contraction for natural resources. Last year, as a condition for the deployment of troops to Libya, Mr Erdogan signed a maritime deal with the Tripoli government strengthening his claim to civil rights in the eastern Mediterranean.
This week, the Egyptian parliament approved a rival maritime agreement with Greece that overlaps with the sea area claimed by Turkey and Libya, and draws up a competing set of claims.
