Military escalation in Tripoli and the Berlin Conference on Libya highlighted in the news

Tripoli, Libya (PANA) - Libyan newspapers were awash this week with stories from the current escalation of tension near Tripoli, which has been the scene of armed clashes since April 4.

They also ran stories the International Conference on Libya, scheduled for late October in Berlin, Germany, saying the conference is experiencing intensive preparations, a meeting likely to serve as an opportunity to find a solution to the crisis that has rocked the North African nation.
 
Another topic that has dominated Libyan news is the problem of garbage in the capital, Tripoli, which is beginning to represent a public health issue that forces local authorities to come forward and call for intervention by the security services.
 
Under the title "Military escalation before the Berlin Conference", the Al-Wassat newspaper wrote that the accelerated international efforts to convene the Berlin Conference on Libya coincided with a military escalation in the suburbs of the capital Tripoli marked by a war that has entered its seventh month, putting analysts in front of confused questions about the justification and timing of this escalation, and whether it is an attempt to reap gains and improve military positions to win in a strong position at this meeting.
 
The newspaper questioned whether this is a new series of preventive abortion acts of this conference, just like what happened before the Forum of Ghadames, which was supposed to be held before the first shot fired in the war in the capital.
 
The Libyan weekly Al-Wassat added that, in parallel with the development on the ground, international efforts to organize the conference have revealed the widening of internal political polarization, given that the national unity government is committed to the spirit of the Skhirat Agreement despite developments on the ground for four years.
 
On the other hand, the other party prefers a serious dialogue leading to different arrangements which means the dissolution of all the organs resulting from this agreement, the paper said.
 
The gap widens with a clear divergence of views on this international initiative among members of the High Council of State, Consultative Assembly and members of the House of Representatives (Parliament) and political figures and those interested in Libyan affairs, the newspaper said.
 
Quoting these same observers of Libyan affairs, the newspaper said that this military escalation and political polarization before the Berlin Conference mark the beginning of what is called the "balance of weakness", where everyone has reached the point of exhaustion in the absence of solutions, and observers stress that "the thread of the crisis has slipped early from Libyan hands, and that the expression that the solution is in the hands of Libyans falls under wish, until everyone sits down at the negotiating table."
 
For its part, Afrigatenews, was interested in the trash crisis in Tripoli indicating that the municipality called on citizens not to burn waste because these actions are prohibited and punishable by criminal penalties.
 
Echoing a statement, the newspaper said the municipality has asked the security services to monitor and prevent these practices, noting that since the early hours of Saturday morning, the waste burnt near the wall Al-Saraya Al-Hamra were cleaned and removed.           

Afrigatenews, an online Arabic-language Libyan newspaper, said the Tripoli Municipality has asked the security services to monitor garbage incineration on the streets and intervene to prevent this from happening again, stressing that it is "unacceptable".
 
The newspaper recalled that General Director of the National Center for Disease Control, Badr Eddin Bashir Al-Najjar, presented the Center's recommendations to the Presidential Council of the National Unity Government on how to handle the waste issue in Tripoli and this after having previously sent a warning message to the Libyan state officials on the need to speed up the development of strategies and the implementation of urgent procedures for the elimination of waste on the streets of the capital Tripoli to preserve the health and safety of citizens.
 
The capital, Tripoli, is suffering from a serious crisis of waste accumulation, the newspaper said, adding that at the beginning of September, an administrative meeting was held at the headquarters of the administrative supervisory authority to examine the situation of the crisis and seek solutions.
 
Afrigatenews quoted Vice President of the Emergency Committee set up by the Presidential Council, Osman Abdeljelil, as saying that the Council of Ministers' meeting on the waste problem found that was aggravated and that the situation had become unhealthy and unacceptable in any way, underlining that the problem lay in the slump of certain services, in particular the fact that the final landfill of Sidi Al-Sayeh is located in the zone of armed clashes that have been going on since April 4.
 
Returning to the issue of the Berlin Conference, Al-Wassat newspaper reported that the efforts of the international community to organize an international conference in Berlin on Libya have created a strong internal and regional polarization as part of efforts to find a political settlement to the crisis that has been raging since the war in the capital last April.       

The talks came back forcefully on a reconciliation agreement between the Libyan parties in December 2015 in Skhirat, Morocco, since the meeting in New York and the preparations for an international conference in Berlin, which Germany wants to make look like the Skhirat's conference, that, in particular, it agreed with the Presidential Council and the internationally recognized reconciliation government.
 
This prompted the President of the Council, Fayez Al-Sarraj, to show his support for the results of the Skhirat Agreement and its affiliated bodies, as a fundamental reference for any dialogue or agreement on "the need to stop immediately" to deal with all parallel institutions to the government of reconciliation, "the paper said.
 
On September 17, Berlin hosted an "undeclared" meeting of representatives of the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Egypt, Russia, Turkey, the African Union and of the Arab League, as well as the UN Special Envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salamé, on the initiative of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, to deal with the Libyan crisis.

-0- PANA BY/IS/KND/VAO 5Oct2019