Libyan marshal Khalifa Haftar, announced in the evening of Monday, April 27, 2020, his withdrawal from the political agreement which led to the formation of the Libyan government, proclaiming that power passed to the army.
In his television message, broadcast by the Libyan Armed Forces media office, Khalifa Haftar, said he obtained the “mandate of the people” to govern Libya and promised to continue his offensive against Tripoli.
Supported by a parliament installed in eastern Libya, Marshal Haftar opposes the government of national unity based in Tripoli and recognized by the United Nations for several years.
In a speech on the television channel Libya al-Hadath, the Marshal also announced “the end of the Skhirat agreement” signed at the end of 2015 in Morocco under the aegis of the UN, from which the government of National Union (GNA) came.
For its part, the GNA, based in Tripoli, denounced, in reaction to this speech, a umpteenth “coup d’etat” of its rival holding its legitimacy of this Parliament which had been forced to go into exile in the east of the country due to a flambé of violence in the capital.
The GNA denounced a “farce and a new coup which is added to a series of others who started years ago”. He considered that Mr. Haftar “even turned against the parallel political bodies which supported him and that they appointed him” chief of the army.
According to the GNA, Marshal Haftar who has been trying since April 2019 since April 2019 to seize the capital Tripoli, wanted to “hide the defeat of his militias and his mercenaries” and “the failure of his dictatorial project”.
For its part, the United States has seen in Haftar’s announcement a “suggestion (…) according to which changes to the political structure of Libya can be imposed by a unilateral declaration,” said the US Embassy on its Twitter account.
