EU leaders meet on Libya amid rise in migrant flows

PanARMENIAN.Net - Europe's major powers will discuss Libya in the margins of an EU summit on Friday, March 18, with leaders expected to focus on efforts to end the political chaos and conflict in the country and rising migrant flows, Reuters reports.

The leaders of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, along with Spain, Malta and the EU's foreign policy chief, are due to meet before resuming talks with Turkey on an EU migration plan in Brussels, diplomats and Spain's prime minister said. "The meeting on Libya concerns all main issues for the stabilization of the country," a diplomat said.

The meeting comes days after EU diplomats agreed to prepare sanctions against Libyan leaders seen as blocking a new UN-backed unity government that is trying to move to Tripoli from Tunis.

"The situation is quite worrying," Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said. "Libya is a country where Daesh (Islamic State) is taking positions, it is a country used by people smuggling mafias ... We will see what we can do."

The unity government was named under a plan to end the political chaos and conflict that has beset Libya since the Western-backed uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi five years ago. That confusion has contributed to a rise in migrants setting off from Libya in an effort to reach Italy, Reuters reports.

Libya's eastern government said that imposing a U.N.-backed cabinet on the country without a parliamentary vote of approval risked deepening the crisis.

It also warned local and international parties in a statement only to work with the new government once such approval was obtained.