Valdai Club

The fragile hope presented by the conference in Berlin, is very vulnerable, because real, not formal, implementation of its decisions is possible only with the active participation of the Libyans themselves.

Two weeks have passed since the beginning of an active stage in the military operation by the Libyan National Army (LNA) to take over Tripoli, the capital of Libya, and its suburbs. It is now obvious that it failed to deliver on the objective of conquering Tripoli, as Brigadier General Ahmed al-Mismari had promised. LNA had hoped that the sudden march on the capital would take its opponents by surprise, but this never happened.

The International Conference on Libya, which recently ended in Palermo, was the first political initiative of the new rightwing populist government of Giuseppe Conti. The alliance of the Five Star Movement and the League (formerly known as the Northern League) did its utmost to put into action a new approach to the Libyan crisis based on an inclusive dialogue.