Secretary of State John Kerry's first Middle East visit after taking office has been announced, and Libya is not one of the stops on his agenda. It can be inferred, however, that Libya will end up being a topic of discussion with multiple officials in his visits to the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar. I would prefer to see direct higher level discussions between U.S. officials and their Libyan counterparts rather than indirect talks with neighboring countries with mutual concerns, and in fact had hoped that Secretary Kerry would have added Libya to his agenda as I argued in Politico and on the Hill's Congress Blog last week.At least the U.S. and Libya are still actively discussing much needed technical assistance with Libya's security forces and military. Ali Sheiki, spokesman for Chief of Staff General Yousef Mangoush, announced that General Mangoush and U.S. Chargé d’Affaires William Roebuck have been discussing U.S. technical training and maintenance for Libya's Air Force. The Libya Herald's report pointed out that the range of discussion rightly remained on vital training and that:
So far there has been no suggestion of equipping the [Libyan] Air Force with US fighter aircraft. Nor, in present circumstances, is it thought likely that any sales of such aircraft would be approved by the US Congress.