Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni met with General Khalifa Haftar last week, the strongman in the Cyrenaica region in Libya where thousands of migrants depart from in the attempt to reach Italy via the Mediterranean Sea.
General Haftar is the strongman of Cyrenaica, the region in Libya from where the majority of migrants depart by crossing the Mediterranean to reach Italy.
For this reason the two-hour-long meeting between Premier Girogia Meloni and Khalifa Haftar that took place on May 4 in the Italian government’s headquarters was seen by observers as one of strategic importance.
A face-to-face meeting with Haftar in January had been canceled when Premier Meloni went to Tripoli for the bilateral meeting with the prime minister of the Libyan National Unity Government, Abdul Hamid Dbeibah.
The situation in Tunisia and Sudan complicates the scenario in Libya
Haftar’s mission in Rome was aimed at moving the dialogue on the stabilization of Libya forward. The country has two governments, one in Tripoli and the second one, which is not recognized, in Benghazi.
The two governments contend for power while waiting for elections, following the cancellation of elections at the end of 2021.
It is a highly unstable scenario worsened by the instability experienced by a good part of Northern Africa. Some 860 thousand persons could potentially be displaced due to the growing conflict in Sudan according to the United Nations.
The evolution of the clashes in Sudan raises concerns by the Italian government, as Meloni explained to her guest.
An unprecedented increase in migrations to Italy
The United States has been pressuring General Haftar to cut off his ties with Moscow and its Russian-affiliated Wagner mercenaries, whose influence in Cyrenaica worries as much as their influence in Sudan. Not even two months ago the Italian government made multiple accusations against Wagner stating that it was “facilitating” migrant flows, used as a hybrid weapon.
Now Italy as well asks for the General’s cooperation, the head of the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) who for the past months has returned to be one of the key interlocutors in the country, a place where Rome has significant interests tied to gas and oil.
However, among the topics of mutual interest there was the migrant file. It was on this topic that the meeting at Palazzo Chigi between Meloni and Haftar focused.
Premier Meloni underscored the unprecedented increase in migration toward Italy: 42,405 persons arrived in Italy from the beginning of 2023, four times as many as those who arrived during the first four months of the previous year, according to figures from the Ministry of the Interior.
Many leave from a still very unstable Libya.
When Premier Meloni met Dbeibah in January, she called for a national political compromise. She confirmed to Haftar that Italy supports UN action in Libya aimed at revitalizing the political process needed to hold presidential and parliamentary elections by the end of 2023.
Source : Info Migrant
