UN special adviser on Libya ends mission with mixed results

Stephanie Williams was appointed special adviser to the UN secretary general in December 2021. AFP

Text by: RFI Follow

2 mins

The United Nations has announced that the American Stephanie Williams, special adviser to the UN secretary general for Libya, has completed her mission.

Despite its efforts, Libya remains at an impasse.

Advertising

Read more

The UN Security Council is unable to send a new special envoy to Libya immediately, the deputy spokesperson says, leaving a vacuum that risks aggravating the situation of a country on the verge of implosion.

Stéphanie Williams, this Arabist diplomat, was number two in the Manul mission between 2018 and 2020. She then became acting special envoy.

She had been appointed in December 2021 as special adviser to the UN secretary general, a way of circumventing the vote in the Security Council where persistent disagreements between world powers prevented the sending of a new special envoy eight months after

.

But the mission of Stephanie Williams has accentuated the divisions.

She was at the heart of the standoff between Washington and Moscow in the Security Council, Washington having opposed the appointment of several African representatives selected by Antonio Guterres.

After the UN's failure to organize elections in December 2021, Stephanie Williams is leaving a deadlocked Libya, with two opposing governments vying for power, deepening divisions and elections postponed indefinitely.

In a final press release published on Sunday July 31, Stephanie Williams called on the Libyans, divided between the Parliament recognized by the international community and that of the East, to break the political impasse.

► To read also: Libya: failure in the negotiations for a constitutional framework for the elections

The end of Stéphanie Williams' mission comes the day after the renewal of Manul, the United Nations peacekeeping force in the country, whose mandate was only renewed for three months, precisely because of a lack of agreement on a new special envoy. .

Newsletter

Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox

I subscribe

Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application

google-play-badge_FR

• Libya

• UN