Libyan Presidency Council summons French ambassador over special forces in Benghazi

Presidency Council  vice-president Ahmed Maetig said the French ambassador was summoned to protest at the presence of the French forces in Benghazi, yet in Paris today there seemed to be no knowledge of any formal request for ambassador Antoine Sivan.

As part of an extended analysis of the challenges facing the Presidency Council and the Government of National Accord, Maetig said that there could be no foreign intervention in Libya.

According to Libya Herald, the Presidency Council was building an army that could tackle internal terrorism as well as defend the country’s borders.

“The Presidency Council had this week discussed the final shape of the GNA, including appointing deputy ministers and heads of corporations and public institutions. It had scoped their structures and responsibilities and the authority they needed to do their work,” Maetig said, adding that council members had also looked at the problems of security, power, the shortage of bank notes and the care of internal refugees displaced by the violence.

Maetig expressed reassurance that the value of the dinar would recover against the dollar once oil exports resumed. “There has been a meeting with the Central Bank and commercial banks to examine the liquidity crisis and the dinar’s plunging value,” he said. According the news agency LANA, Maetig said that the Council had set out plans to end the lack of liquidity and foreign exchange rate. He did not say what those plans were but said the Council was waiting for the responses from the banks.

“I and my fellow Presidency Council members understand the problems being faced by ordinary Libyans,” he said. He reminded media who had come to the Prime Ministry in Tripoli for a press conference yesterday that the Council had fired the old management and board of state electricity company GECOL and replaced them with new executives appointed on a temporary basis.