The leader of Libya’s government on Sunday said that he had suspended his foreign minister after her Israeli counterpart announced he had held talks with her in Rome last week.
Libyan Minister of Foreign Affairs Najla al-Mangoush has been “temporarily suspended” and would be subject to an “administrative investigation” by a commission chaired by the justice minister, Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah said in an official decision posted on Facebook.
The Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs described it as a “chance and unofficial encounter,” but news of the meeting had already led to street protests in several Libyan cities.
Photo: AFP
The political row broke out on Sunday after the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the two countries’ foreign ministers had met the previous week.
The statement said that Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Eli Cohen and al-Mangoush spoke at a meeting in Rome hosted by Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani.
The Israeli statement described it as the first such diplomatic initiative between the two countries.
“I spoke with the foreign minister about the great potential for the two countries from their relations,” Cohen said in the statement from Israel’s foreign ministry.
However, the Libyan foreign ministry on Sunday evening said that al-Mangoush had “refused to meet with any party” representing Israel.
“What happened in Rome was a chance and unofficial encounter, during a meeting with his Italian counterpart, which did not involve any discussion, agreement or consultation,” the ministry said in a statement.
The minister had reiterated “in a clear and unambiguous manner Libya’s position regarding the Palestinian cause,” the statement added.
News of the meeting had sparked protests in some Libyan cities and a letter from the country’s Presidential Council requesting clarification.
The Libyan foreign ministry accused Israel of trying to “present this incident” as a “meeting or talks.”
In the Israeli foreign ministry statement, Cohen was quoted as saying that the two discussed “the importance of preserving the heritage of Libyan Jews, which includes renovating synagogues and Jewish cemeteries in the country.”
“Libya’s size and strategic location offer a huge opportunity for the State of Israel,” he added.
There was no immediate confirmation of the meeting from Rome.
Earlier on Sunday evening, the Libyan Presidential Council requested “clarifications” from the government, Libya al-Ahrar TV reported, citing correspondence from spokeswoman Najwa Wheba.
The Presidential Council, which has some executive powers and sprang from the UN-backed political process, includes three members representing the three Libyan provinces.
The letter said that this development “does not reflect the foreign policy of the Libyan state, does not represent the Libyan national constants and is considered a violation of Libyan laws which criminalize normalization with the ‘Zionist entity.’”
It asked the head of government “to apply the law if the meeting took place.”
On the streets of Tripoli and its suburbs, protests erupted in a sign of refusal of normalization with Israel. The protests spread to other cities where young people blocked roads, burned tires and waved the Palestinian flag.
Like several other North African countries, Libya has a rich Jewish heritage.
However, during decades of rule by former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi, who was a strong supporter of the Palestinian cause, thousands of Jews were expelled from Libya and many synagogues were destroyed.
Qaddafi was overthrown and killed in 2011 by a NATO-backed uprising that plunged the country into more than a decade of chaos and lawlessness.
The country is split politically with rival administrations — the Tripoli government in the west and another in the east backed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar.
Israel has normalized relations with some Arab countries in the past few years as part of US-backed deals known as the Abraham Accords.
However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hardline government has come under intense criticism from Arab states, because of surging violence in the West Bank and for backing the expansion of Jewish settlements in the occupied territory.
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