On 24 May, UN Special Envoy to Libya Abdoulaye Bathily and Turkish Ambassador to Libya Kenan Yilmaz co-chaired the first plenary session of the Security Working Group of the Berlin Process International Follow-Up Committee on Libyan soil. The meeting was attended by members of the 5+5 Joint Military Commission (JMC) and diplomats representing the UK, France, Italy, Russia, Algeria, Egypt, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the African Union and the European Union.
In his opening remarks, Bathily called for collective action to address the ‘many challenges and obstacles’ that continue to face Libya, adding that the elections would not solve all the problems in the country, but that they would be ‘the gateway to a better future’. He also stated that the conflict in Sudan ‘poses a direct threat to Libya’s security and stability in the South’, warning that it ‘risks creating a security vacuum that could allow armed groups, terrorists, and criminals to operate freely and exploit the situation for their own interests’. Meanwhile, Yilmaz said that ‘the very fact that the Solutions Working Group is able to convene inside Libya validates the remarkable progress made by the patriotic Libyan generals in this room’.