RIYADH: Saudi Arabia closed its diplomatic mission in Libya and withdrew all of its diplomatic staff on Monday due to security concerns, the ambassador said.
“All the diplomatic staff has left the Libyan capital aboard a private plane due to the security situation through which Libya is passing,” Ambassador Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Ali said in a statement reported on SPA.
Libya has suffered a series of attacks on its leaders and foreign diplomats in the increasingly lawless North African country, three years after NATO-backed rebels ended Muammar Qaddafi’s four-decade dictatorship.
The situation has descended into chaos since Friday when a rogue general launched an offensive against Islamists in the eastern city of Benghazi, cradle of the 2011 uprising.
On Sunday armed groups attacked the parliament in Tripoli as well as an air base in the east of the country.
Saudi Ambassador Al-Ali said all Saudi diplomats in Libya were flown out in a decision made “in coordination with the Libyan side.” He added that the mission will reopen and the diplomats will return “when the situation stabilizes in the Libyan capital.”
“We are in contact with the Libyan side on all developments,” he said.
Some countries have also pulled out their diplomatic staff from Libya.
On Friday, Algeria sent a special forces team into Tripoli to evacuate its ambassador and embassy staff following threats. Algeria has also imposed restrictions on border crossings, allowing only Algerian citizens to cross from Libya and only Libyan citizens into Libya, a security source said.
Turkey temporarily closed its consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi on Monday, a spokesman said.
The flag that normally flies over the consul building in Libya’s second city had been taken down, according to a Reuters witness, but Turkish officials said staff had not been evacuated.
The consulate was closed after a specific threat, Tanju Bilgic, spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry, said, without giving further details.
“The consulate has been closed for today as a security measure. Whether it will remain closed tomorrow or not will be decided in light of the security situation,” he said.
Turkey is one of the last countries to maintain a diplomatic presence in Benghazi, where the US ambassador was killed during an attack by Islamist militants on the American diplomatic mission in the port city in 2012.
KSA closes embassy in Libya due to security concerns
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LIBYANS paid with their lives to end the 42-year dictatorship of Muammar Qaddafi, but nearly 15 months after he was killed by fighters they remain at odds over a democratic constitution to replace it.
There is not even consensus on who should draw up the charter. Some want the 200-member General National Congress elected in July to appoint a panel to carry out the task. Others want fresh elections to a constitutional convention.
The GNC came to power with a mandate to appoint a government and oversee the drawing up of a new constitution, but the mechanics of that process remain the subject of intense debate.
GNC chief Mohammed Megaryef told civil society groups in December that the assembly would make its decision after broad consultations with the public, without setting a time frame for the process.
He recalled that the provisional constitution, as amended just days before the GNC’s election in a bid to head off a federalist boycott, stipulates that the charter should be drawn up by an elected convention with equal representation for each of the three historic regions, Tripolitania, the Fezzan and Cyrenaica.
Abu Baker Bueira, a leading pro-federalism personality, said his camp wanted a qualified committee to be elected directly by the people in free and fair elections.
“We don’t know how far we’ll go but we are against the notion of selecting those people by appointment,” he said.
There are no members of the federalist movement in the congress because they boycotted the last election, but many Libyans support the idea of a decentralized system of government.
“Before deciding one way or the other, the assembly determined that there should be a national dialogue... and whatever the decision, we hope to do this transparently, taking into consideration the citizens’ opinion” Megaryef said.
The International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Libya, Claudia Gazzini, said there was wisdom in that approach.
“It is better to take things calmly and consult people rather than rushing the process and alienating public opinion,” she said.
But others say it would be folly for Libya to prolong the political and legal uncertainty while it is still struggling to rein in the former rebel militias that are the legacy of the armed uprising that ousted Qaddafi in October 2011.
“I think they are leaning toward an elected committee because they don’t want to take responsibility for the results,” an international electoral observer based in Tripoli said.
“An elected committee is the least logical — it makes no economic or political sense — but it seems the most likely,” added the observer, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“By delaying the constitution, you prolong legislative uncertainty because laws are not based on the constitution. Instead you have interim laws and that affects everything, the economy, investment.”
Hassan Lamin, an independent GNC member from the city of Misrata, insisted that the assembly should bite the bullet and draw up a new constitution itself as quickly as possible.
“The national assembly is passing laws... and it is neglecting its priority. There is no excuse for this delay,” said Lamin, adding that he was considering freezing his membership of the assembly in protest.
Whoever draws up the constitution will have to decide a host of key issues, including not only the system of government but also the country’s official language or languages, which could include Berber as well as Arabic, and the status of women and ethnic minorities.
In a country where conservative Muslim values run deep, there is little doubt that Islam will be a major plank of any new charter, but its drafters will have to decide just how big.
“There is broad consensus that the new constitution should draw heavily from Shariah, but also consensus on the need to avoid extremism,” said the Washington-based National Democratic Institute.
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