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In the news: Libya rejects EU plan for migrant crisis In the news: Libya rejects EU plan for migrant crisis

 
Published May 9, 2015

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Libya rejects EU plan for migrant crisis

UNITED NATIONS — Libya's ambassador to the United Nations is largely rejecting a European Union plan to fight the growing migrant crisis, saying his Western-backed government hasn't even been consulted and ruling out EU forces on Libyan soil "at this stage."

In an interview Friday with the Associated Press, Ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said the best way to resolve the migrant crisis is to arm the "legitimate" government in a country that has fractured. A rival regime is backed by Islamist-allied militias who have taken the capital, Tripoli.

And the ambassador warned that if there is no progress in U.N.-led peace talks in the coming weeks, his government, which is under a U.N. arms embargo, "has to take necessary steps even to take the capital by force."

Dabbashi said his government has been left out of the international discussion of the migrant crisis, with thousands of people from the Middle East and Africa departing from Libya's shore for Europe and many dying at sea. The crisis has grown amid the chaos that has consumed Libya since the overthrow of dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Associated Press