British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond rejected calls for military intervention in Libya, insisting a political solution must be found to the North African state\u2019s struggle against the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS\/ISIL).<\/p>\n
Hammond said on Thursday that efforts to install a national unity government will help Libya in its struggle against terrorist groups.<\/p>\n
His comments follow an appeal by Libya to the UN Security Council to lift its arm embargo, so it can counter threats from IS and other militants.<\/p>\n
Libya\u2019s internationally recognized government currently controls only half the country. A rival government based in Tripoli claims to be the legitimate one.<\/p>\n
Speaking alongside his Algerian counterpart Ramtane Lamamra in Algiers, Hammond said: \u201cWe don’t believe that military action can solve the problem in Libya<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe Algerian position and the British position are identical … we believe in an inclusive political solution in Libya.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cEfforts to empower Libya to install a national unity government will help its struggle against terrorism and prevent the [IS] terrorist group from gaining a foothold in Libya<\/em>,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Speaking in Madrid later that day, Hammond said the UN Security Council would not lift an arms embargo on Libya until the country had a unified government.<\/p>\n In a joint press conference with Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo, Hammond said: \u201cThe problem is that there isn’t a government in Libya that is effective and in control of its territory. There isn’t a Libyan military which the international community can effectively support<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSimply pouring weapons into one faction or the other, which is essentially what has been proposed, is not going to bring us to a resolution to the crisis in Libya<\/em>,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n His comments echo those of US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said the United States believes \u201ca political solution, one that is non-intervention, is the right path forward<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Libya submitted a draft resolution to the UN Security Council calling for the arms embargo, which has been in place since the country\u2019s revolution in 2011, to be lifted.<\/p>\n Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Dayri told the council Libya needs weapons in order to deal with \u201crampant terrorism<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Bernardino Leon, the country\u2019s envoy to the UN, said he was hopeful a unity government would be formed soon. \u201cThe differences between the parties are not insurmountable,<\/em>\u201d he told the Security Council.<\/p>\n RT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond rejected calls for military intervention in Libya, insisting a political solution must […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":503,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[62,1],"tags":[78,14,105,11,61,17],"class_list":["post-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe","category-news","tag-egypt","tag-isis","tag-libya","tag-terrorism","tag-uk","tag-un"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Philip-Hammond-UK.jpg?fit=640%2C360&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7jJWb-if","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1132,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1131\/revisions\/1132"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ir-ia.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}