RUSSIA and China have been accused of blocking the official release of a report by United Nations experts on Libya that accused its warring parties and their international backers – including Russia – of violating a UN arms embargo on the war-torn country.
Germany’s deputy UN ambassador, Gunter Sautter, said he brought the issue to the Security Council after the two countries blocked the report’s release by the committee monitoring sanctions on Libya, which Germany leads.
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He said: “Many delegations have asked for the publication of the panel of experts’ interim report.
“This would create much-needed transparency. It would contribute to naming and shaming those who continue to blatantly violate the arms embargo in spite of agreements that have been made.”
However, diplomats said that Russia and its close ally China had again blocked the arms report’s publication.
Sautter said before the meeting, when asked what Germany could do if Russia and China blocked the report’s release again: “Let me assure you I will continue to use every tool at hand in order to make sure that we have the necessary transparency.”
The report, seen by The Associated Press earlier this month, said the arms embargo was being violated by Libya’s UN-supported government in the west, which is backed by Turkey and Qatar, and by rival east-based forces under commander Khalifa Haftar, backed by the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Jordan.
The panel said the embargo remains “totally ineffective”.
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The experts said 11 companies also violated the arms embargo, including the Wagner Group, a private Russian security company which the panel said in May provided between 800 and 1200 mercenaries to Haftar.
In addition, the experts said the warring parties and their international backers, along with Egypt and Syria, failed to inspect aircraft or vessels if they have reasonable grounds to believe the cargo contains military weapons and ammunition, as required by a 2015 Security Council resolution.
Anwar Gargash, the United Arab Emirates’ minister of state for foreign affairs, told reporters at a virtual briefing on Friday that he would not comment on a report he has not seen.
But he said “we categorically deny” many of the “wild allegations that we’ve been hearing in the press”.
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