Mediaboss Marketing

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has displaced around 6 million people, yet one silver lining is that refugee-hosting European Union countries have been, by many accounts, extraordinarily welcoming to these refugees. Instead of being indefinitely detained in inhumane detention centers, many of these Ukrainian refugees, who are mostly white Christians, have been able to stay with host families in Europe or hotels and dormitories free of charge. Even nationalist governments like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbans regime have been willing to take in Ukrainian refugeesdespite the prime minister saying as recently as December 2021 that we will not do anything to change the way the border is protected. We wont change it, and we arent going to let anyone in.

Orban, who has become a hero to the American right and embodies a certain illiberal style of strongman leadership, has previously peddled the claim that mass migration poses an existential threat to his country and has caged and starved refugees. Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski was also quick to show his solidarity with Ukrainian refuges, announcing in February that anyone fleeing from bombs, from Russian rifles, can count on the support of the Polish state, despite his government having spent hundreds of millions of euros on building a 115-mile border wall to deter Middle Eastern asylum-seekers from entering the country from Belarus a few months earlier.

The contrast between the treatment of Ukrainian refugees and those from African and Middle Eastern countries is starkone group has been warmly embraced while another has been rebuffedsometimes at the same time and fleeing across the same border.

The often-baroque intricacies of the international migration system and the plight of the African refugees and asylum-seekers it chews up and spits out is taken up in a new book by journalist and FP contributor Sally Hayden. My Fourth Time, We Drowned: Seeking Refuge on the Worlds Deadliest Migration Route is a deeply researched and harrowing chronicle of the experiences of many refugees fleeing dictatorships, violence, persecution, and war. The book is the culmination of a one-woman fact-finding mission to uncover the myriad abuses faced by migrants hoping to make a better life for themselves in Europe. Haydens reporting instincts come through on every pageas does her moral indignation.

Much of her fury is appropriately directed at European Union migration policies that have led to violence, extortion, and crimes against humanity. In 2015, for example, the EU launched the Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, aimed at stopping migration to Europe; since then, 455 million euros ($487 million at current exchange rates) have been earmarked for Libya, ostensibly for migration and border management, but large portions were funneled instead to traffickers and militiamen.

Hayden recounts being sandbagged by U.N. officials, who refused to speak with her for investigative pieces after her critical coverage of them or being stonewalled by media outlets as a freelancer. How was this story so unknown internationally? she wonders. And how would anything improve if the public was never shown the shameful and horrifying reality of what was happening?

In addition to her published work, she took to social media to post her findings. Even then, however, the ease with which she sent dispatches to the rest of the world was counterbalanced by a knocking dread over the role social media platforms have played in directing the fates and fortunes of African migrants. Technology became both a blessing and a curse, she writes. It could be a lifeline used for asking for help or a humiliationthe way oblivious friends and relatives could chance upon their abuse, suffering, and anguish in real time. It has a further warping effect, inflating ransom prices for captured migrants.

Haydens narrative covers the period between 2017 and 2021. During this period, according to the book, more than 7,000 men, women, and children (a conservative estimate) drowned in the Central Mediterranean Sea; 80,000 people were intercepted at sea by the Libyan Coast Guard and forced to return to Libya, an oil-rich country that has become a key transit hub for migrants from Africa and the Middle East. This tactic, Hayden notes, allowed the EU to circumnavigate international law, specifically the principle of nonrefoulement, under which a person cannot be sent back to a country where their life is endangered. (Libya did not sign on to the 1951 Refugee Convention, which gives refugees international rights.)

The book properly begins in 2018, with a Facebook message that Hayden receives one summer day from an Eritrean refugee in Ain Zara, a prison-like migrant detention center in Libya. He sends her photos of his emaciated body, pleads with her to contact U.N. agencies on his behalf, and updates her on the war going on just outside the centers gates. He had breached two borders, survived kidnapping by traffickers, and traveled nearly 3,000 kilometers to get to Libya, Hayden writes.

After he had failed to cross the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe, he was imprisoned in the detention center, where he would spend months in migration purgatory alongside hundreds of others. The entire group had recourse to only one shared cell phone, which they used to make emergency calls to relatives and reporters like Hayden.

The Eritrean told Hayden he and other detainees are put to work as slaves in the homes of wealthy Libyans and that Libyan guards order them to stand outside in early, cold hours for roll calla ritual not unlike Appellplatz, Hayden notes, which Nazis carried out to humiliate prisoners in concentration camps. She is soon inundated with Twitter and WhatsApp messages from other detained refugees.

Of the 20 official migrant detention centers in Libya at that time, Hayden eventually finds a way to contact people in halfmany of whom would qualify as what scholar Jacqueline Bhabha has called distress migrants or people for whom mobility presents the only viable exit from conditions of chronic destitution, ecological degradation, or conflict. An activity that was once limited to men looking for seasonal agricultural work is now undertaken by hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, and elsewhere.

The category of distress migrants is one that Hayden does not explicitly invoke, but it is in keeping with the spirit of her book, which seeks to enlarge existing categories for legal migration and erode false dichotomies, such as the one between refugees and economic migrants that underpins modern migration law. (Refugees, per the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, have a well-founded fear of persecution and thus a bona fide claim to international protection while the latter are often treated as scofflaws spontaneously driven by pecuniary motives.) Many of the individuals Hayden interviews are driven to flee their homes out of fear for their safety and economic desperation.

Theyre also often ensnared in a Catch-22: Most had a clear entitlement to international protection, though the irony of asylum law is that they must first illegally reach a safe place to be granted their right to live in it, Hayden writes. She hears from Eritreans seeking to evade forced conscription, Somalis running from war or the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab, Ethiopians who are repressed due to their ethnicity, Tigrayans exhausted by ceaseless poverty, and more. All these people could have benefited from humanitarian aid before they made their hazardous journeys; instead, they face detention and punishment.

Their stories were eerily similar, she notes, and they follow a similar pattern: East Africans first pay smugglers thousands of dollars to convey them to Sudanwhere they might be sexually assaulted and extorted for even more money by corrupt policewhence they embark on what one of Haydens refugee sources calls the road of death. (Hayden cites an EUobserver investigation that found that the European Union has given more than 200 million euros to Sudan in the mid-2010s to curb migration. And as reported by Der Spiegel, the Janjaweed, a paramilitary group accused of war crimes in Darfur, has been one beneficiary of the EUs largess.)

If they dont survive the 800-mile trek through the Sahara Desert, they are shepherded into a holding pattern in the form of cacophonous warehouse prisons in Bani Walid, a lawless Libyan town that migrants call the ghost city because of the number of people who mysteriously vanish. In one such compound, a source relates to Hayden, there are only four toilets, with negligible plumbing. Showers are only permitted every two weeks, and refugees are reduced to drinking water from toilets.

From there, those who survive board overcrowded, unseaworthy rubber vessels thatif they dont capsizeeventually get intercepted by armed Libyan militiamen, who funnel them on to detention centers. These centers, where refugees end up marking time, are nominally run by Libyas Department for Combating Illegal Migration, which has ties to the U.N.-backed Government of National Accord, but in reality, Hayden writes, the Tripoli government was weak, propped up by a collection of militias that operated with impunity.

Once they enter the jaws of a detention center, distress refugees often start to feel paralyzed, disconnected, useless. Several migrant detention centers are doubled as military bases, Hayden observes, with refugees being used as human shields. She describes an especially nightmarish detention camp in eastern Tripoli, which one U.N. source likened to Guantnamo Bay.

The Tajoura detention center was housed in a military complex with a subterranean network of cells that once served as torture chambers. It also happened to be the headquarters of the Daman militia. One Sudanese detainee, who was punished after attempting to escape, wrote: They broke my hand and the legs of my three friends, also they put us in a private room far away from the others. Every day they punish us: no water, no eating, we are about to die.

When fighting broke out in Tripoli, fighters forced some of the stronger-looking refugees to become combatants or else to man weapons stores, clean tanks, load bombs onto vehicles, and cook for the military. When the first airstrike hit a nearby weapons depot in July 2019, it caused utter chaos: One refugee sent Hayden a video of detainees darting around for cover or trying to break through windows to escape. You see the dust and hear hollering, almost celebratory, like a lot of weak people have suddenly remembered that they are alive, adrenaline coursing, blood pumping, Hayden writes. Theres also the awful smell of burnt flesh. The U.N. later estimated that the death toll was 53, though unofficial accounts are four times higher.

What makes the ordeals of African refugees even more disturbing is the way they are juxtaposed with Haydens account of her own trips to several African countries, including Eritrea and Sudan. For example, in a section that begins with the story of an Eritrean refugee named Kaleb, who sets out on a migration route taken earlier by his father, Hayden includes excerpts from her own travels in the region, undertaken in 2015 while working as a Vice staff writer. She recalls being taken on a hike by a kind Ethiopian guide and a local guard. Summiting a mountaintop, she reflects that it felt like a place far from politics, though I later found out the Ethiopian government was forcibly relocating people from their villages as part of efforts to improve conservation and increase tourism.

In Sudan, Hayden experiences a different atmosphere: I found a heavily controlled state with a prevalent air of tension where civilians suffered the crushing effects of US sanctions, imposed two decades before due to accusations that Sudans regime was sponsoring terrorism. Still, she is able to obtain a travel permit and a stamped letter of approval from Sudans Commission of Refugees, and a short flight or a long drive in jeeps can easily transport her to market towns or refugee camps. (Hayden also registers her discomfort at receiving awards for her reporting while the material conditions of refugees have not improved.)

Hayden strikes the right balance: Rather than threatening to overtake the stories of refugees, her personal accounts lend them a surreal hue, emphasizing the arbitrary nature of those who can travel freely, with the aid of passports, and those who are left to the caprices of smugglers and traffickers. Corrupt governments and ineffectual, increasingly corporatized U.N. agencies, which have done much to manufacture the humanitarian crisis in Libya, also attract much of Haydens ire.

As one source tells her, the amount of time and money that [the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees] spend[s] on visibility and public relations is more than they are spending on the actual work. The asymmetry of power between those living relatively free lives and refugees at the mercy of deadly seas or arbitrary detention highlights the gap separating those who pay attention and those who do not have to. Even when Westerners do pay attention, theres a risk it will be ephemeral. Hayden anticipates this; in an afterword, she discusses the psychic toll her reporting has taken on her and the need to avoid becoming complacent.

The situation in Libya, which lacks a stable government and is cleaved into rival factions backed by armed groups, has grown even more dire since Haydens book was published. As revealed in a confidential EU military report leaked to the Associated Press this year, Europe plans to continue a program that allows the North African country to manage a massive search-and-rescue area of the Mediterranean in spite of the fact that tens of thousands of migrants have suffered torture, sexual abuse, and extortion from detention center guards.

The same report that calls for a continuation of the EU program to train Libyas Coast Guard personnelmany of whom are former smugglersalso incongruously notes that the Libyan patrol has used excessive physical force when intercepting migrants in the past. Libya also recently appointed a trafficking wolf to guard the migrant henhouse, installing Mohammed al-Khojaa known militia leader who formerly ran the Tarik al-Sikka detention center in Tripolito lead the Department for Combating Illegal Migration. The appointment is in keeping with EU-sanctioned crackdowns on migration in a country ravaged by years of civil war.

The accelerating climate crisis poses another threat to refugees in coming years. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warned that the effects of global warming, at 2 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, are much more widespread and much more negative than expected. Intensifying heat waves, rainfall, and storm surgeslargely a result of the burning of fossil fuelswill displace more than 1 billion people by 2050, hitting poor and disenfranchised populations the hardest.

Haydens noteworthy book should be a wake-up call for international aid organizations and world leaders. Remarking on the IPCC report, U.N. Secretary-General Antnio Guterres said delay is death. The same is true for the millions of people from African countries who are now seeking refuge on a rapidly warming planet.

The world needs a new and more equitable international migration system that acknowledges the reality of hundreds of thousands of distressed individuals fleeing conflicts or climate catastrophes in their homelands as well as invests in generous resettlement programs for the most vulnerable, including children. Without such changes, tomorrows migration crises will be even more traumatic and destabilizing than todays.

Here is the original post:
How the EU and UN Endangered Refugees in Libya and Made the Migration Crisis Worse - Foreign Policy

Her Majesty the Queen has a historic and personal connection to Libya. The Queens second ever-state visit was to Tobruk, where she visited the War Cemetery commemorating British and Commonwealth soldiers who fought and died in North Africa in the Second World War. There she met Libyas former King, Idris, who invested upon Her the Order of Idris the First. This represented an important step in a vibrant and enduring relationship between our two countries.

At the first QBP in Libya since 2014, Her Majestys Ambassador to Libya, Caroline Hurndall, formally re-opened the British Embassy in Tripoli, which had been closed since that year. The reopening of the Embassy underlines the UKs continuing commitment to develop closer cooperation with Libya and to work with Libyans and the UN towards a durable political settlement for Libya.

Her Majestys Ambassador to Libya said:

Although the Embassy is based in Tripoli, this is a demonstration of our commitment to the whole of Libya. I am proud that our work touches the lives of Libyans across the whole country.

If Libya is to fulfil her political and economic potential, Libyas leaders must continue to implement the October Ceasefire Agreement, and work together to pursue compromise and cooperation. The people of Libya deserve this.

A wide range of guests attended including government officials, the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, representatives of other embassies, and members of Libyas vibrant business and civic communities to celebrate The Queens Platinum Jubilee, the reopening of the British Embassy in Tripoli, and the work of the British Embassy throughout Libya.

HMA Caroline Hurndall raising the Union Flag

The British Embassy in Tripolis work across Libya includes:

Her Majestys Ambassador to Libya announcing the official reopening of the British Embassy in Tripoli, Libya.

Read Her Majestys Ambassador to Libyas speech.

The Queens Birthday Party is celebrated by British Embassies and High Commissions around the world.

Read more information on Her Majesty The Queens Platinum Jubilee.

Contact BritishEmbassy.Tripoli@fcdo.gov.uk.

Follow the British Embassy in Tripoli on Twitter,and Facebook.

Follow Her Majestys Ambassador on Twitter.

More here:
Her Majesty's Ambassador to Libya announces the official reopening of the British Embassy in Tripoli at the Queen's Birthday Party - GOV.UK

Bidens inauguration as the 46th President of the United States promised not only a shift in U.S. domestic policies but also a return to Obamas chapter in Washingtons foreign strategy. Bidens victory in the 2020 elections was especially anticipated in Teheran, which had experienced years of relentless economic pressure by the previous administration in Washington. However, more than a year has passed since Biden arrived into the White House, but the JCPOA still lies on the verge of a complete collapse.

Despite experts remaining consistently optimistic about the ongoing negotiations in Vienna, fewif anytangible results have been delivered so far. But, while the negotiations have more or less been stalled, the simultaneous advancement of Irans nuclear program has been very much active, approaching the milestone of accumulating enriched uranium enough for a functioning nuclear device with every passing week.

Therefore, the U.S. faces a dilemma as it has to decide just how many concessions it is ready to offer to Teheran to convince it that the JCPOA is worth another try. Iran, however, is not very inclined to soften the position of its own.

Time is not on Washingtons side

There is a good chance that the U.S. will have to take a more flexible stance on the JCPOA and related issues, since time is working against Washington. The previous administration had vastly miscalculated the economic implications of the maximum pressure campaign it unilaterally imposed upon Iran. Trumps administration in its typical manner believed that upon facing significant financial damage, the leadership in Teheran would choose to compromise rather than persist in its ambitions in the Middle East. Likewise, Washington seemed to believe that should the government insist on maintaining its policy despite the economic pressure, the countrys population would eventually overthrow the regime in Teheran or put enough domestic pressure on it to agree to certain concessions in the very least (although U.S. officials formally denied seeking a regime change in Iran).

However, this assumption proved to be completely disconnected from reality on the ground. Not only did Iran manage to hold the domestic unrest in check, but also the nation was very much capable of maintaining a functioning economy even under the maximum pressure campaign. Subsequently, the U.S. practically failed to force Iran to cave in through economic pressure, while lacking a feasible plan B to walk out of the crisis on acceptable terms. Right now, Washington is finding itself between a rock and a hard place as it can no longer expect the sanction regime to do the job and force Iran to make concessions, but the White House is still very reluctant to start even a limited military campaign in the Middle East to effectively destroy some of Irans nuclear capabilities.

Meanwhile, Teheran is not sitting idly. Instead, the country is gradually developing its nuclear potential, both increasing its weight in the Vienna negotiations and approaching the amount of radioactive resources it needs to create a nuclear weapon. As of May 2022, the U.S. continues to refuse to look at the situation realistically and seems determined to force Teheran to withdraw some of its demands. Eventually, however, Biden will have to see that the situation is hardly developing in his favour, and the current political climate in the world is only making it easier for Iran to continue standing its ground.

Dealing with Iran in the shadow of the Ukrainian crisis

The prospects of the JCPOAs salvation are largely informed by the current crisis in Ukraine, which can both complicate and accelerate the renegotiation of the nuclear deal. For the U.S., the developing conflict has become the primary concern in its foreign policy, forcing Washington to pay less attention to both Teheran and Beijing. Washingtons most burning objectives are currently twofoldcurtailing Moscows economic power as much as possible and ensuring Ukraine manages to preserve its sovereignty. Both are hugely dependent on the U.S. ability to manipulate the world petroleum prices and the amount of Russias oil and gas exports.

Economic pressure on Moscow is (among other factors) largely sustained by the prices of gas and oil, whose export is a crucial component of Russias economy. Therefore, one of Washingtons primary efforts is centered around minimizing the amount of petroleum Moscow can offer to the global market, while lowering the oil prices simultaneously, which had recently experienced an abrupt surge.

While there are several ways of doing that, Iran probably offers the most straightforward option. Should the JCPOA become a reality again in its 2015 form and the sanctions on Teherans resources be lifted, the world market will receive a substantial influx of Irans resources. As a result, even if the amounts of petroleum Moscow sells worldwide remains roughly the same, it will not be able to receive the same revenue due to the global price changes. Of course, it is hard to expect this to happen swiftlyeven if the parties reach an agreement on the nuclear issue in the near future, it will still take some time to reintegrate Iran back into the world petroleum market. However, the market is quick to react to such developments, and the shift in oil prices could very well occur much sooner than the actual transfer of resources.

Moreover, the huge reserves of gas and oil Iran boasts of can become a viable alternative for the EU countries, many of which are having doubts about the prospects of importing petroleum from Russia and are actively looking for other sources. Thus, the demand of the EU countries could potentially be met with the offer of the Islamic Republic, which is very eager to find new partners it could sell its oil and gas to. Prior to the imposition of the sanction regime by the U.S., Iran enjoyed a number of trading partnersboth in the EU and in the Middle Eastthat are looking forward to diversifying their gas and oil supply by trading with Teheran. The only thing they need is the lifting of the sanctions by Washington. This could fractionally offset the damage done by the partial stop of the petroleum delivery to the EU countries from Russia as well as accommodate their aim of gradually decreasing their reliance on Russias gas and oil.

JCPOA or war

Moreover, the ongoing conflict significantly decreases the amount of options Washington has in dealing with Teheran and its nuclear program. Should they fail to reach compromise in the coming months, Iran could very well set its cause on developing a full-blown nuclear weapon as fast as possible. In that case, the U.S. will have two options onlyeither let it happen, essentially triggering another regional (or even global) crisis of nuclear proliferation, or opt for a military operation against the countrys nuclear facilities. However, a limited military operation is almost impossible to imagine: To effectively curtail nuclear developments in Iran, the U.S. and their allies would have to conduct a full-scale campaign involving the use of aircraft and missile strikes.

In this scenario, the conflict is unlikely to stay solely within Irans borders, but will almost inevitable spill over to the entirety of the Middle East with largely unpredictable consequences. Such a war would not only constitute a giant burden to everybody involved but will also spark a financial crisis for the entire world. Needless to say, the U.S. fully understands this and is not likely to engage in direct warfare against Iran even as a last resort to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Americas resources and attention being held up in Ukraine right now only complicates the prospects of Washington undertaking any military action in the Middle East.

However, one should mention that there is a possibility of the U.S. being dragged into the conflict against its own will. Israel views Iran as an existential threat, and the development of a nuclear weapon in the Islamic Republic is a redline many believe Tel Aviv will not let Teheran cross. Seeing that the country is dangerously close to accumulating enough radioactive materials for a bomb, Israel might opt to carry out several military strikes against Irans nuclear infrastructure or try to sabotage it in another way. This in turn will force Teheran to respond, sparkling a regional conflict the U.S. will have to become a part of in one way or another.

However, this scenario is much less likely to happen today than it was a year or two ago. Both Israel and the U.S. have gone through a change of leadership, and their bilateral ties as well as foreign policies are not the same they were before the 2020 elections. With Netanyahu leaving office, Tel Aviv is no longer as radical in its policies against Iran and is far more reluctant to use a military option of curtailing Irans nuclear program. Likewise, Bidens perception of Israels role among the U.S. allies has experienced a negative change as well and Washington is no longer bound to support Tel Aviv in any military campaign it decides to embark upon against the Islamic Republic. Israel has a clear understanding of this and is unlikely to regard a war against Iran as a favourable option.

Who will have to take responsibility?

Another point for the U.S. to consider are the implications of the complete failure of the JCPOA and its consequences to Biden and, more importantly, to the Democratic Party. While it is true that the collapse of the deal should mostly be attributed to Trumps administration, since it was their strategy to renegotiate the deal, today the responsibility largely lies with the Democratic Party. Bidens election campaign promises included the salvation of the JCPOA, which is not as imminent now as it used to be a year ago. Besides, should any kind of conflict take place between the U.S. and the Islamic Republic, it will almost certainly be blamed on Bidens administration and their failure to find a compromise with Teheran, even despite the previous administration creating the conditions for such failure.

The Democrats are already standing in for a lot of criticism for their domestic and foreign policies, with the current crisis in Ukraine set to only complicate both. The revival of the JCPOA at least in some form that would prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon is likely to be presented to the public as a huge political victory that has made it possible to avoid another catastrophic conflict in the Middle East. Failing to achieve this will be a significant setback for Democrats chances of winning the 2022 and 2024 elections. All the consequences of this fiasco will be attributed to them, and if Iran manages to construct a nuclear weapon, the Republicans will use it as a talking point in proving their aggressive strategy against Teheran to be the only possible way of dealing with it. Thus, reanimating the nuclear deal is crucial for the Biden administration even if it will eventually have to make some painful concessions.

The ball is still in Washingtons court

Despite the situation getting more and more urgent with every passing week, the U.S. still looks reluctant to make more concessions to Teheran. For Washington giving in to any new significant demands would be catastrophic mainly from the political point of view. Delisting IRGC as a terrorist organization is more of a symbolical move that is not very likely to significantly empower the militant organization. Likewise, accepting Irans quest of revenge for the death of Soleimani, Irans assassinated top general, probably wont take the shape of any real moves against the U.S. on Irans part. Teheran simply cannot afford to give up on their promise of retaliation since that would be a political suicide. However, it is very unlikely they will ever actually attempt what they threaten.

Nevertheless, conceding to either will be a huge blow to Biden and his administration from the political perspectiveboth the general population and many Congressmen will accuse the White house of being too weak in dealing with Iran to the point of agreeing to delist a terrorist group just to appease Teheran. That is a price Biden is not yet willing to pay, hoping Teheran will eventually drop some of the demands and allow him to save face. This hesitation, however, can cost the world dearly, since the ball is currently in the U.S. court with Biden refusing to acknowledge it.

The general idea in Washington seems to be that Iran is not really planning to create a nuclear bomb, but rather uses its nuclear program as a bargaining chip in negotiations with the U.S. to extract more concessions. This might be true, but it is also a risk the world cannot afford to take.

The intentions of the leadership in Teheran might as well be completely opposite, especially in the light of the assassination of an Iranian general carried out by the U.S. in early 2020. That operation demonstrated Washingtons total disregard for its adversaries as long as they didnt have nuclear weapons for a potential retaliation. Whence Iran could actually be embarking on a path to obtaining a nuclear weapon and prolonging the negotiations to be able to accumulate more radioactive materials to the point of becoming a nuclear threshold state. Therefore, it is crucial for the U.S. to reach some sort of agreement with Teheran as soon as possible in order to minimize the chances of Iran turning nuclear in the near future.

Since the strategy pushing Iran to drop some of its demands is apparently not working, agreeing to some symbolic, although politically painful concessions, might be the only way for the U.S. to make sure the Islamic Republic does not acquire a nuclear weapon. While being far from what Washington had initially expected, this would answer the main concern the world has today about Iranprevent it from going nuclear. This will not be an ideal agreement, but Washington has to set its priorities straight. The risk of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons should overrule most other concerns of the U.S. regarding the Islamic Republic and its policies.

From our partner RIAC

Related

Read the original:
The West Gives Ukraine What It Denied to Libya - Modern Diplomacy

The visit by Minister Najla M. El-Mangoush is one that symbolises the strong relationship that Malta and Libya have and will see that it is further strengthened in all areas, Foreign MinisterIan Borg said following an official meeting he had with Libyas Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

Minister Borg said that Malta embodies important values in Maltese foreign policy, such as those of cooperation, friendship,and active participation. These values were also noted in the strong vote that Malta managed to achieve a few days ago so that from next year it will form part of the United Nations Security Council.

During the bilateral meeting, several topics of interestforboth countries, primarily the Mediterranean region, were discussed in order to ensure stability and security. Other important topics were discussed such as irregular immigration and human trafficking.

The Maltese minister for foreign affairs stated that during the official meeting, the current situation in Libya was also discussed, and how Malta can contribute to this process of stability.Once again I reiterated Maltas position and urged all parties to refrain from taking any action that would undermine peace and security in the country. I believe that a political solution is needed as soon as possible through fair and inclusive elections, said Ian Borg.

Minister Borg said that Malta will continue to move forward and give its support to Libya also on a European and international basis.

From her end, Libyas Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Najla M. El-Mangoush said that this meeting is important because the good relations and the friendship that Libya has with Malta could be further strengthened. She also stressed the significance of todays dateJune 11 asit was this dayin 1965 that marked the beginning of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Originally posted here:
Government committed to further strengthen relationship with Libya Minister Ian Borg - Malta Independent Online

Libya has participated in the Phoenix Express 2022 Military Exercises 17th edition which was hosted Saturday by Tunisia.

The Tunisian Defense Ministry said the exercise is attended by 13 countries, including North African states, the US and some European states, which all are represented by naval and aerial military units.

The exercise is also attended by international organizations such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime as well as the European Fisheries Control Agency.

According to the Tunisian Defense Ministrys statement, the exercise aims to strengthen cooperation and coordination among the participating navy apparatuses in order to preserve the security and stability of the Mediterranean, train individuals and develop their capabilities, make good use of systems and equipment, develop skills and coordinate to confront illegal acts at sea, especially maritime terrorism as well as smuggling arms and drugs.

Read more:
Libya takes part in naval military exercise in Tunisia with 13 other countries - The Libya Observer