The United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan has met the UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame in Abu Dhabi to discuss ways to end the fighting in Libya.
Sheikh Abdullah praised the role played by the UN in Libya and interestingly called for putting an end to the humanitarian plight there and combating extremist and terrorist groups and armed militias and disarming them.
While the UAE has always supported Haftar. According to a 2017 UN report, the Persian Gulf Arab state has provided eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) with military and logistical support.
The UN report issued in June 2017 said Haftar’s forces had received aircraft and military vehicles from the UAE, which also built up an air base at Al Khadim, allowing the LNA, which is allied to a parallel government based in the eastern city of Benghazi, to gain air superiority by 2016.
Along with this meeting, France, Britain, Egypt, the UAE, the US and Italy have called for an immediate end of hostilities in Tripoli.
In a joint statement issued on Tuesday, the six countries “expressed concern” about ongoing hostilities in Tripoli, call for an immediate de-escalation and halt to the current fighting, and urge the prompt return to the UN-mediated political process.
"There can be no military solution in Libya," the statement said.
"Persistent violence has claimed nearly 1,100 lives, displaced more than 100,000, and fueled a growing humanitarian emergency," it added.
Libya has been suffering from unrest since 2011, when its long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed. Since then the country has been divided between two rival governments, with an elected parliament governing the country's east, and the UN- and EU-backed GNA ruling in the western part of the country.
Military commander Khalifa Haftar's Libya National Army (LNA) has been battling rival militias since April in a bid to wrestle control of Tripoli from Libya's internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).
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