Russia, Egypt call for more active work on Libyan crisis settlement - Lavrov

MOSCOW, March 16. /TASS/. Russia and Egypt urge the external players to exert more active and coordinated efforts aimed at the Libyan crisis settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said after talks with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry on Wednesday. "We, together with Egypt, urge all the external players to exert more active and coordinated efforts to normalize the situation in Libya," he said. "There is an agreement, which was signed in Skhirat, Morocco (the Libyan political agreement as of December 17, 2015), it was welcomed by the UN Security Council." Lavrov said that the UN Security Council also called for involving in the national reconciliation process "all Libya’s influential players in order to create a genuine, inclusive transitional government." "We hope that such an approach would reverse the situation both in terms of a unified army, unified law enforcement agencies that is now the subject of serious disputes between the Libyan sides", the minister said. Previously, Lavrov said after talks with his Tunisian counterpart Khemaies Jhinaoui that military intervention in Libya with the goal of fighting against terrorism may take place only based on a mandate of the UN Security Council. "We know about the plans of military intervention in the situation in Libya that are being discussed openly and not very openly," Lavrov said on Monday. "Our common position is that this can be done only with the permission of the UN Security Council." The possible mandate for operation against terrorists in Libya needs to be "absolutely unambiguous" not to allow any interpretations, he said. Readmore