Tripoli— The newly appointed Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of UNSMIL Ms. Hanna Tetteh arrived in Tripoli on Thursday and officially assumed her duty in Libya, a country that has been mired in a political crisis since 2011.
Ms. Tetteh is the tenth UNSMIL’s head who comes to Libya representing the UN Security Council and, like the others before her, she promises to lead mediation efforts to “forge a path towards” a so-called “Libyan-led and Libyan-owned solution.”
Upon her arrival, Ms. Tetteh held an introductory meeting with the Acting Foreign Minister Taher Al-Baour where she “reiterated the UN’s commitment to working closely with all Libyan stakeholders to overcome the current political deadlock and put the country on the path to national elections,” according to an UNSMIL statement on X platform.
Accompanied by DSRSG Koury and DSRSG Chuma, Ms. Tetteh held a meeting Thursday with Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh who welcomed her to Libya and wished her success in her mission.
Tetteh “expressed sincere appreciation for the warm welcome and reaffirmed her commitment to collaborating with all Libyan stakeholders,” according to an UNSMIL statement. She “emphasized the critical importance of supporting Libyan-led efforts to uphold national unity, safeguard territorial integrity and preserve the country’s sovereignty,” it added.
Ms. Tetteh, a well-experienced UN diplomat who had worked in many troubled regions in the world, will need to hit the ground running in Libya, and need not reinvent the wheel as to establishing new more “committees” and new “initiatives,” a habit her predecessors seem to have been enjoying.
The Libyan people who for the past fifteen years have witnessed a lack of seriousness on the part of UNSMIL and the international community are now expecting a different approach to solving the problem—that is holding national elections soon.