MOSCOW — Mohammed Siyala, the foreign minister of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), came to Moscow this week for talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov. While Syria has been occupying center stage of Russia’s Middle East agenda, Moscow has never ceased its activities in Libya since it became involved in the peace process in mid-2014 and began building contacts with multiple Libyan factions.
The Lavrov-Siyala meeting Dec. 12 focused on prospects for resolving the disputes of rival factions in Libya under the UN action plan. They also discussed the prospects of Russia shortly reopening/returning its embassy to Tripoli. The ministers expressed interest in restoring full trade and economic partnerships as the situation in the country normalizes.