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28 March 2024

Libya training Syrian rebels: Russia

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's Ambassador to the UN, speaks during the United Nations Security Council meeting to discuss the situation in Libya, after listening to Libya's interim Prime Minister Abdel Rahim El Kib (not pictured), at UN headquarters in New York on March 7. (Reuters)

Published
By Reuters

Russia accused Libya during a U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday of running a training centre for Syrian rebels and arming the fighters in their battle to overthrow the country's President Bashar Al Assad.

"We have received information that in Libya, with the support of the authorities, there is a special training centre for the Syrian revolutionaries and people are sent to Syria to attack the legal government," Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, told the U.N. Security Council.

"This is completely unacceptable ... This activity is undermining stability in the Middle East," said Churkin, who also questioned whether "the export of revolution" was "turning into the export of terrorism."

Russia, which is Syria's main arms supplier and has use of a naval base there, has also repeatedly voiced anger over Nato air strikes that helped Libyan rebels drive Muammar Gaddafi from power last year and on Wednesday Churkin demanded that Nato recognise it caused civilian casualties and pay compensation.

Rights groups have said several dozen civilians were killed by Nato air strikes in Libya.

While Libyan Prime Minister Abdurrahim El Keib did not respond to Churkin's accusation that Libya was training Syrian rebels, he told the U.N. Security Council that Libya has already investigated the deaths of all civilians during the fighting.

"I hope that the reason for raising this matter will not be to impede or prevent the international community from interfering in the situation of other states where their peoples are being massacred and killed at the hands of their rulers," Keib said.
Libya said last month that it would donate $100 million in humanitarian aid to the Syrian opposition and allow them to open an office in Tripoli.

Libya was one of the first foreign states to recognise the Syrian National Council as the country's legitimate authority in October - a gesture it said showed solidarity after Libya's own struggle to oust Gaddafi and end 42 years of autocratic rule.

"The world should help the Syrian people because they have seen that things are moving forward in our case and before that in Egypt and before that in Tunisia," Keib told the International Peace Institute earlier on Wednesday.

"They might find it needs to be treated differently (to Libya), but definitely the objective is to help the Syrian people gain their freedom," he said.