Barka calls for solutions rooted in citizens’ needs
LIBYA – Libyan political analyst Othman Barka has said citizens’ daily hardship and the deterioration of services and living conditions should be the main yardstick for assessing any political process to end the crisis, criticising what he described as the limited room for manoeuvre of the UN Support Mission in Libya within a framework he said is set by the US initiative.
Limits of the mission’s mandate and the US initiative
In exclusive remarks to Al-Ain News, Barka said the mission operates within predetermined paths and lacks sufficient space to put forward independent solutions, arguing that its efforts to break the deadlock do not go beyond the powers granted to it and the US initiative.
The Libyan file appears complicated in practical terms, he added, but could be closer to a solution if there were genuine political will. In his analysis, the faltering of the mission’s moves does not necessarily reflect failings on its part so much as shortcomings in the initiative within which it works.
Citizens as the basis for judging a settlement
He stressed that the United States does not hold a monopoly on defining the nature of the Libyan crisis or charting the way to resolve it, arguing that the key yardstick is how far the political process responds to the economic and service decline Libyans are experiencing.
He warned that if the mission continues within these constraints without addressing the roots of the crisis and the aspirations of the population, its mandate could, in his assessment, end the way previous missions did — without a real settlement that ends division and restores stability.
