Head of Libya’s GNA says “No more negotiations with Haftar”

The Head of the Libyan Presidential Council, Fayez Al-Sarraj, said he would not negotiate with Khalifa Haftar in the future, after he had committed crimes in the country.

Al-Sarraj added in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, that he would not sit with “the commander of the aggression on Tripoli” after “the disasters he committed against all Libyans”, saying that all their previous attempts to resolve the conflict through a political process had been impeded by Haftar.

“GNA and its forces accepted the humanitarian truce with caution, expecting that the pandemic of the Coronavirus would turn Haftar into a man of his word, but Haftar saw the epidemic as an opportunity to attack us!” Al-Sarraj said.

Al-Sarraj added that Haftar’s failure made him target Tripoli’s residential areas, power stations, civil institutions, and even Al-Khadra Hospital in the center of the capital with tens of indiscriminate rockets.

Al-Sarraj confirmed that, since April 2019, after the first attack was contained, “We were able to reorganize our forces and carried out a counter attack and regained locations along the lines of the main operations room of Haftar’s militias at the time. Today, we are recapturing cities such as Sabratha and Surman as we have become stronger and are moving with the right steps towards a fixed goal.”

He added that GNA forces repelled the attack alone without any external support for seven months, and then the GNA signed a security agreement with Turkey only on November 27, while the attack was launched on April 4.

“We have sent letters to many countries to activate security cooperation. Turkey has responded positively and signed a military-security memorandum of understanding. We receive experts, consultants and support for our security and defense program from Turkey.” Al-Sarraj added.

“We signed an agreement on military cooperation with Turkey in the broad light of the day. We do not have contracts with mercenaries. However, we have taken prisoners and obtained evidence of the presence of foreign mercenaries within Haftar’s militias.”

Al-Sarraj further explained that “there are Syrian mercenaries who come from Syria on board the Damascus-Benghazi flights for Cham Wings Airlines, which is listed on the US Treasury blacklist.”