UN proposes new envoys to Libya, Middle East

CAIRO - 15 December 2020: Diplomats said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has proposed new envoys to mediate conflicts in Libya and the Middle East; the UN Security Council may give them the green light on Tuesday after months of delay.

Guterres nominated his current envoy to the Middle East, Nikolai Mladenov, to become his special envoy for Libya, succeeding Ghassan Salameh, who stepped down due to stress. Guterres has also nominated veteran Norwegian diplomat Tor Wennesland to succeed Mladenov as the U.N. mediator between Israel and the Palestinians.

If there are no objections from any of the fifteen members of the Security Council, their appointments will be approved by Tuesday to end months of bickering caused by the United States' pressure to divide the international organization’s role in Libya into an envoy running the UN mission and one focused on mediating the conflict.

The Security Council approved this proposal in September 2020. According to letters seen by Reuters at the time, the UN Secretary-General proposed the Bulgarian diplomat Mladenov, who has been the United Nations envoy to the Middle East since 2015, to be appointed as Libya's envoy.

Oil-rich Libya has been mired in chaos since the ouster and killing of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. It now has two rival authorities and a multitude of militias vying for control of the country.

The country’s internationally recognized government is based in Tripoli, while Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan National Army, is supported by a parallel administration based in the east.

In the Middle East, the Palestinians want to establish a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.