Cairo (AP) — Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi is calling on the international community to lift an arms embargo on Libya so that weapons can be delivered legally to a powerful general he backs in the fractured country's east. The UN Security Council has imposed an arms embargo on Libya since February 2011 relating to the supply or arms and military equipment to and from Libya. Since September 2011 supplies of arms to the new Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) have been allowed, if approved by the Sanctions Committee, as well as temporary exports for the use of UN personnel, the media and humanitarian and development workers. After meeting Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter in Cairo on Saturday, el-Sissi, himself a former military man, said that Hifter's Libyan National Army required the weapons to fight terrorism. Efforts should be made to stop foreign funding from flowing to terrorist groups in Libya, he added. Libya descended into chaos following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The oil-rich nation is now split between rival governments and militias. In August 2014, after violence had flared up in Libya, Security Council Resolution 2174 required that any supplies of arms and related materiel to Libya must be approved in advance by the Sanctions Committee. This appears to be a slight change from the previous requirement that allowed arms supplies in the absence of a negative decision by the Sanctions Committee. Hifter is allied with the internationally-recognized parliament in eastern Libya and at odds with the U.N.-backed government in Tripoli.
