MUNICH/CAIRO _ A senior United Nations official said the arms embargo on Libya is a "joke," as governments called for accelerated talks on a permanent cease-fire in the North African state.
Officials gathered in Munich Sunday expressed concern about "the deplorable recent violations" of the weapons embargo, while also reaffirming the conclusions of a summit in Berlin last month, which sought to move toward ending the civil war between Fayez al-Sarraj, Libya's UN-backed prime minister, and his rival General Khalifa Haftar.
Stephanie Williams, a UN deputy special envoy who also attended the meeting, said that the situation on the ground "remains deeply troubling" and the truce "is holding only by a thread." There have been "hundreds of violations reported" and "the arms embargo has become a joke," she said at a news conference.
Germany, Russia, Turkey, France, Britain, the U.S., China, Egypt, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates were among nations represented at the meeting on the sidelines of a high-level security conference in the Bavarian capital.
"Despite all the areas where we haven't reached our goal, the path that we've chosen is functioning and the diplomatic engagement in the past days has been effective," German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said at the news conference.
