The day after his exchanges, Monday, July 27, in Cairo, around the Libyan crisis, the head of the Saudi diplomacy went Tuesday to Algiers then Tunis before going to Rabat on Wednesday.
The purpose of this surprise Saudi diplomatic tour in the Maghreb is not specified, but aims, according to several sources, to bring closer the views of Libya’s neighboring countries on a solution to this crisis.
From Algiers, to Tunis to Rabat, the speech of the Saudi Minister of Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan was the same: he stressed, in coherence with his counterparts, “the central role” of Libya’s neighboring countries in the “peaceful settlement of the Libyan conflict”, in “the protection of these countries against terrorism” and in the fight against “foreign interference”.
According to several observers, Saudi Arabia, which is reactivating its foreign diplomacy after a long period of sleep, “is attempting a rapprochement between Cairo and Algiers. The two countries are in cold blood because of differences over a way out of the Libyan crisis.
Riyadh is indeed seeking to bring the positions of Libya’s neighbors closer together. This “working” tour is organized to “consult and exchange views on regional issues and especially on Libya”.
In the various statements that accompanied this Saudi tour, Tunis, Algiers, Cairo and Rabat all displayed “a convergence of views” with Saudi Arabia.
The Saudi Arabian visit to Rabat comes the day after the visit of two senior Libyan officials who exchanged views with the Moroccan authorities on the possibilities of a peaceful solution in a Libyan framework.
According to press reports, a new political conference to amend the Skhirat agreement signed in 2015 is not excluded.
As a reminder, Egyptian MPs lately approved a possible Egyptian armed intervention in Libya. Cairo sees the presence of the thousands of mercenaries transported by Turkey to Libya near its borders as a threat to its national security.
