By IANS,
United Nations : The UN will assist Libya at the directives of its new government after the current conflict in the North African nation comes to a close.
United Nations Under Secretary-General for political affairs B. Lynn Pascoe informed reporters here Thursday, Xinhua reported.
“One thing that the National Transitional Council (NTC) has made very clear is they expect the UN to play a strong role in the post-conflict period,” said Pascoe.
The month-long conflict between Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan government and the NTC rebels seems to be coming to an end as rebel forces overrun Tripoli while the whereabouts of Gaddafi remain unknown.
Pascoe said the UN’s future activities in a post-conflict Libya depend on requests from the Libyan people and new Libyan authorities.
“Let me state first that any process will be a Libyan-led one,” he said. “What we are doing is trying to help them. We are not imposing or coming with our own ideas.”
Ian Martin, the UN special advisor dealing with post-conflict planning in Libya as well as Abdel-Elah Al Khatib, UN special envoy to the country have been engaged in discussions about the African nation’s future.
Pascoe said Martin has been “in charge of the process for the secretary-general trying to look at the issues that are out there, ways that we may be helpful, and things that we could do to help a new government get established and carry through with the kind of free and open democracy that they want and that we want.”
There are many areas where the UN could support Libya, said Pascoe, with regard to the establishment of a government, as well as the development of accountable institutions, and reconciliation issues.
The UN’s expertise on security could also be quite helpful, though there are currently no plans to deploy UN peacekeepers to the country, Pascoe stated.