Libya : UN To Appoint New Envoy

A crucial meeting to appoint a new United Nations envoy to Libya is afoot in New York. Experts say the meeting that began yesterday, August, 15, 2022 is very urgent as it comes a few days after the end of the mission of the UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams. Since the resignation of Slovak diplomat Jan Kubis from the post of United Nations (UN) Special Envoy for Libya in November 2021, the position has been vacant. US diplomat Stephanie Williams, appointed shortly after as special adviser to the UN secretary-general (a way of circumventing the vote in the Security Council, where there were many disagreements), completed her mission on July 31st, 2022. Mr Jan Kubis, who left his post one month before the December 24, 2020 general elections, did not give any reason for his resignation. But it is thought that Kubis resigned on the grounds that he did not receive the necessary support in Libya from the major stakeholders.
In June 2022, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN), proposed former Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum to lead the UN support mission in Libya (UNSMI). There was consensus on his candidacy, but at the end, the United Arab Emirates opposed it. The refusal added to that of Algeria’s Ramtane Lamamra and Ghana’s Hannah Tetteh all blocked by countries believed to be under United States influence. Sin...