Libya has called on the Arab League to help stop the flood of weapons into the country which is helping fuel the Islamic State insurgency.
The Prime Minister of the Libyan government of national unity (GNA), Fayez al-Sarraj, in a speech on Monday at the 27th Arab league Summit in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott, requested for support to end arms infiltration while rejecting foreign military intervention in the country.
Al-Sarraj retraced Libya’s fight against the Islamic State group which took advantage of the political chaos in the country in 2014 to set up its stronghold after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.
The summit which was supposed to be a two-day event ended on the evening of its opening on Monday and was attended by seven heads of states out of the 22 heads of member countries.
The countries participating in the Summit were Jordan, UAE, Qatar, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen and fifteen other Arab countries, while the Syrian seat was suspended “because of the ongoing war in the country.”
Representative of the head of the African Union, the Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ahmad Abu el-Gheit, the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the secretary-general of the Gulf Cooperation Council, the representative of the UN’s secretary general, in addition to a number of other representatives, were present at the Summit.
“The Arabs have shown they are able to deal with common problems without differences and Nouakchott will be a new starting point for a joint Arab action,” the secretary-general of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said at a press conference at the close of the Summit.
He added that there was unanimity for finding political solutions to end the chaos in Syria, Yemen, Libya and Iraq especially while recalling the commitment of the leaders to unite against terrorism.
Morocco was supposed to host the Summit in March but later withdrew from hosting it giving the reason that “it wanted to avoid giving a false impression of unity in the Arab world”.
