A ceasefire declared in Libya

GNA Prime Minister Faiez Serraj Fayez Sarraj during a conference in Ankara, Turkey, this past June.

The Libyan Government of National Unity (GNA), recognized by the UN, and the Tobruk-based Speaker of the Parliament, both adversaries in the armed conflict that has rocked the country for the last five years, signed yesterday an agreement that establishes an immediate ceasefire, and the opening of negotiations to reach a political solution. Since last June, hostilities had ceased in the Maghreb country, but both sides had launched threats that heralded a new outbreak of violence.

The GNA Prime Minister, Faiez Serraj, declared on his Facebook page that he had given "instructions to all military forces to apply an immediate ceasefire and cease all combat operations." For weeks, all eyes were on the city of Sirte, key to the control of the oil export terminals, and the Youfra military base, both located in the center of the country. The agreement between both parties establishes that both Sirte and Youfra become demilitarized zones.

So far General Khalifa Hafter, a strongman from the east of the country, has yet to express his opinion on the agreement. It is not clear if Aguila Saleh, the president of Parliament, consulted with him before taking the step. Both have been allies in the conflict with the GNA but after Hafter's failure in his offensive to conquer Tripoli last spring, both have grown apart. In fact, some analysts have speculated that Moscow, one of Hafter's backers, might be planning to replace the general with Saleh.

“The agreement represents the only beginning of a process that could very well derail. You have to be cautious, ”says Jalel Harchaoui, an analyst at the Cligendael think tank , who believes that we will have to wait for the next few days to assess the success of the initiative. In any case, he considers it an important fact that some of the powers faced by surrogacy in the Libyan conflict have backed the pact. “Both Turkey and Egypt support the initiative, and that is something that has not happened so far. Egypt has detached itself from the Emirates for the first time, has changed its approach and is putting pressure on Hafter, ”adds Harchaoui.

In addition to the ceasefire, one of the main points of the text signed by both parties is the unblocking of the oil terminals, which were occupied by troops loyal to Hafter in January. Since then, the country has stopped exporting oil, the government's main source of income. According to the estimate of the National Petroleum Company (CNP), the losses to the public coffers reach 8.2 billion dollars (almost 7 billion euros). The CNP, one of the few national institutions still in force in a country cut into a thousand parts, has blessed the agreement in a public statement.

Together with pressure from Moscow and Egypt, a factor that could push Hafter to implement the pact and allow oil exports is that it includes the restoration of electricity production in the east of the country, suspended due to the lack of natural gas. . This is one of the main shortcomings that the Libyan population suffers, along with inflation, lack of liquidity and the expansion of covid-19 in a country with much of its infrastructure destroyed.

According to the agreed text, a negotiation will be opened on the distribution of oil revenues, which, for the time being, will not be available to either the GNA Government or the eastern authorities of the country. Discrepancies over the distribution of these funds was the reason that led Hafter to block the export.