One of Libya’s rival prime ministers returns to Tripoli on 1st business flight from Italy in years

CAIRO — One of Libya’s rival prime ministers on Monday returned to the capital of Tripoli from Italy on a constitution flight with a business airline, the primary direct flight between the 2 international locations in a decade.

Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah, who heads the Tripoli-based authorities, boarded the flight from Fiumicino airport in Rome. Flight AZ894 is operated by Italy’s nationwide airline, ITA Airways.

“From Rome to Tripoli through the Italian airways, ITA,” Dbeibah wrote on Twitter attaching a photograph of the flight ticket. The flight landed in Mitiga airport, the one functioning airport within the Libyan capital.

Dbeibah stated Monday that Libyans would be capable of e book direct flights to Italy in September after the Italian authorities agreed earlier this month to carry a 10-year-long ban on civil aviation within the North African nation.

He stated Sunday that flights between Libya and Italy would assist pave the best way for the opening of airspace with different international locations. Dbeibah stated his authorities would work to renew flights between Rome and the Libyan japanese metropolis of Benghazi, in response to his workplace.

In Rome, Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s workplace hailed the ITA flight as “another tangible sign of the direction that the Italian government wants to impress in its relations with Libya and in its relations with the States of the broader Mediterranean” area.

PHOTOS: One of Libya’s rival prime ministers returns to Tripoli on 1st business flight from Italy in years

Oil-rich Libya plunged into chaos after a NATO-backed rebellion toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. In the disarray that adopted, the nation break up into rival administrations within the east and west, every backed by rogue militias and overseas governments.

The eastern-based authorities is headed by Prime Minister Ossama Hamad, who was appointed the nation’s House of Representatives after Libya failed to carry elections again in December 2021. Hamad’s authorities is backed by highly effective army commander Khalifa Hifter, whose forces management japanese and southern Libya.

Dbeibah is a detailed ally of Meloni’s authorities. He was in Rome attending a summit that geared toward curbing the circulate of migrants to Europe.

Libya is the dominant transit level for migrants from Africa and the Middle East attempting to make it to Europe.