‘Opening a new chapter’: Syria reopens embassy in Libya after talks

Syria and Libya have agreed to reopen Syria’s embassy in Tripoli, which has been closed for 14 years, and reactivate a committee for coordinating bilateral ties during talks between Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah of Libya’s internationally recognised government and Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shaibani.

Al-Shaibani arrived in Tripoli on Sunday to meet with Libyan officials, according to a statement from Libya’s Government of National Unity (GNU).

Libya has been split since 2014 between the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, led by Dbeibah, and an eastern administration, led by Osama Hammad and backed by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar. Representatives of Libya’s rival governments signed a deal on Sunday to hold national elections within two years.

Damascus and Tripoli signed an agreement to reactivate the Libyan-Syrian Joint Higher Committee, a committee at the prime ministerial level tasked with coordinating political, economic and social ties between the two countries.

Dbeibah and al-Shaibani also agreed to open a Syrian consulate in Benghazi, raising the level of diplomatic representation between the two states.

The talks covered security cooperation and counterterrorism, according to the GNU statement. The two sides also discussed consular services and the status of prisoners, detainees and refugees from both countries.

Economically, they addressed unresolved financial dues between Libyan and Syrian institutions. The Syrian foreign minister also met with Libya’s oil and gas minister and the country’s investment authority chief to discuss energy and investment cooperation.

The Syrian embassy in Libya has been closed since 2012 after Libya’s then-Transitional National Council recognised the Syrian opposition and diplomatic relations between the two countries were severed during then-Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.