5+5 Joint Military Commission holds conference on progress of ceasefire, calls for further actions

On 23 November, the 5+5 Joint Military Commission (JMC) met with the Security Working Group formed through the so-called Berlin process of January 2020 to brief the international community on the progress of the ceasefire the JMC delegates had reached one month prior. In the briefing, 5+5 JMC member Mukhtar al-Nagasa said the commission and the Security Working Group were reiterating the need to expel all mercenaries and foreign elements from Libya. The meeting reportedly resulted in a call for the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to issue a binding resolution on the ceasefire agreement, and to urge the countries that took part in the Berlin Conference to work with the 5+5 JMC and UNSMIL to remove foreign mercenaries from Libya. The meeting also reportedly resulted in an agreement to enforce the international arms embargo by sending an international monitoring mission under the auspices of the UN and supervision of the JMC. Participants in the meeting also agreed to impose sanctions on states and individuals who violated the ceasefire agreement [O-C2].Although the JMC’s meeting with the Security Working Group was necessary for the advancement of the 5+5 dialogue process and the implementation of the ceasefire agreement, this implementation is clearly not progressing as planned. No Turkish or Russian personnel appear to have left the country. Technically the ceasefire between Libya’s two main coalitions is holding, but other aspects of the agreement – including the removal of foreign mercenaries – have not been even partially fulfilled. More than one month has elapsed out of the three months allocated for the withdrawal of armed forces, but the JMC’s report confirms that the withdrawal has yet to begin. Even if the UNSC takes the actions called for during the JMC/Working Group meeting to support the ceasefire, these will take time, and their effectiveness is hard to predict. The removal of foreign fighters from Libya and the withdrawal of troops from the frontlines will depend in large part on the cooperation of foreign actors who do not tend to act in concert with the UN or the West, namely Turkey and Russia. In fact, these latter actors may be trying to torpedo the UN process in order to become the top mediators in Libya. They may even wish to maintain their personnel in Libya, not because they are needed militarily but merely to assure the failure of the UN process.