11 September – 17 September: Germany to host conference on Libya

Sep 18, 2019 | International actors

On 11 September, Germany’s ambassador to Libya announced that Germany would host a conference on Libya in conjunction with the UN as a follow on to this year’s General Assembly discussions (to be held next week in New York City). Details about the proposed conference have not been released, with media speculating that it will be held in either October or November in Berlin. The announcement of the conference followed shortly after German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed earlier in the day to the Bundestag that the Libya Crisis threatened to destabilise all of Africa and that Germany would work to avoid a proxy war in Libya. Merkel commented, “In Libya, a situation is developing that can take on similar dimensions to what we have seen in Syria … and its imperative we do everything we can to make sure this does not escalate into a proxy war.”

On 15 September, the UK appointed Nicholas Hopton as its new chargé d’affaires and hence head of UK Embassy to Libya. Hopton was previously the UK’s Ambassador to Yemen from 2012 to 2013 after which he was the Ambassador to Qatar from 2013 to 2015. Following this he was the British chargé d’affaires in Iran in December 2015 and then became the British Ambassador to the country in September 2016.