The Turkish Anadolu news agency (AA) reports that fighter planes carried out airstrikes on military sites in the western city of Misrata, Libya’s UN-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) said Thursday.
Mustafa al-Majai, a spokesman for the GNA’s Burkan Al-Ghadab (Volcano of Rage) operation, told Anadolu Agency that some old air defence sites and battalion camps were hit.
Al-Majai did not say who the warplanes belonged to but noted there were no casualties.
In the meantime, Russian news agency TASS quotes Grigory Lukyanov, senior lecturer at the Department of Political Science at the Higher School of Economics, as saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s statements about the Libyan crisis will be heard by the parties in the conflict.
Putin said at the traditional annual press conference on Thursday that it would be right for the parties in the Libyan conflict to find a solution that “would allow to stop military actions” and to “agree on who, how and with what powers would govern the country.”
Lukyanov adds at the sides in the Libyan conflict are very attentive to what Putin says about Libya.
Lukyanov added that call for negotiations represents a constant feature of Russia’s policy toward Libya. “Russia has always maintained contacts with two main parties in the Libyan confrontation – the government in Tobruk [interim government of Abdullah al-Thani] and the government in Tripoli [internationally recognized Government of National Accord headed by Fayez al-Sarraj],” he said. The expert also reminded that at the Russia-Africa summit in October, Libya was represented by two delegations.
Lukyanov said that both governments in Libya pay attention to Russia’s position and think that Russia is one of the few countries “that was not involved in the process of destroying the Libyan economy in 2011, and they trust Russia as a possible moderator in crisis settlement.”
