US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for the \u201cimmediate withdrawal of foreign forces\u201d from Libya during a meeting of the Group of Seven nations on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
G-7 foreign ministers met in London for their first face-to-face talks in more than two years, with calls for urgent action to tackle the most pressing global issues.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Libya has been engulfed in chaos since a NATO-backed intervention ended Muammar Qaddafi\u2019s four-decade rule in 2011 and has been split since 2014 between warring administrations in the west and east.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Blinken renewed Washington\u2019s support for the Libyan government to hold elections in December and said the US \u201cstands with the Libyan people to find a UN-facilitated political solution to the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
UN sponsored talks produced a new interim government for Libya in early February aimed at resolving a decade of chaos by holding national elections later this year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The latest UN process also involved a cease-fire, but not all terms of the truce have been met.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
G-7 foreign ministers from the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US also held a separate session on the war and humanitarian crisis in Syria.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cMy G-7 counterparts and I reaffirmed our commitment to a political resolution for ending the conflict in Syria and support to the reauthorization of the UN cross-border aid mechanism,\u201d Blinken said in a tweet following the meeting.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
He said they would continue working to advance all aspects of UN Security Council Resolution 2254, which calls for a cease-fire and political settlement, and \u201cend the suffering of Syrians.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
On Iran, Blinken said they have had serious discussions in Vienna over the past few weeks and that some progress has been made, \u201cat least in demonstrating the seriousness with which the United States takes the effort to return to mutual compliance\u201d with the Iranian nuclear deal.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have a long way to go if we are going to get anywhere, and we still have to see whether Iran is willing and able to make the necessary decisions on its part for returning to compliance,\u201d Blinken told the Financial Times.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Britain currently holds the rotating G-7 presidency and is set to host a leaders summit in Cornwall next month. — Arab News<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Source: National News Agency<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken called for the \u201cimmediate withdrawal of foreign forces\u201d from Libya during a meeting of the Group of Seven nations on Tuesday.G-7 foreign ministers met in London for their first face-to-face talks in more than two …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n