London — If U.N. attempts to get peace talks going between rival Libyan factions fail, there is a risk of full-scale civil war which would pose a serious threat to Libya's neighbours and to Europe, the British special envoy for Libya said.
The U.N.-sponsored talks, which began in Geneva on
Wednesday, aim to reach agreement to form a unity government. But they have
begun without one important faction - the self-declared government which took
over the capital Tripoli last year, forcing the elected government and
parliament to relocate.
Bernadino Leon, the U.N. envoy leading the talks, still
hopes to bring the Tripoli government into the negotiations. "Will he
succeed? I don't know," Jonathan Powell, Britain's envoy for Libya and a
seasoned mediator, said in an interview with the Thomson Reuters Foundation on
Wednesday.
"I sincerely hope he does, because the alternative of
Libya turning into a Somalia by the Mediterranean would be completely
disastrous," he said. Libya would become a threat to southern Europe, and
to Egypt and Tunisia. "Tunisia of course is one country everyone will want
to protect as the success story of the Arab Spring," Powell said.
Libya is at a stage where it could go into a full-scale
civil war, or start coming out of the conflict. "It's not clear yet which
of those is going to happen," he said. Governments are unlikely to
intervene by sending in troops, in the way that Iranian forces are on the
ground in Syria, he said.
"But that won't stop people supporting their side in
such a conflict, with weapons, advice, money, indeed egging them on. I hope
that won't happen but that is the danger," he said.
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