The Biden administration just appointed its first special envoy for Libya. Ambassador Richard Norland, who has been the United States’ ambassador to the North African country since August 2019. He will now double as a special envoy.
Out of the US Embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, Libya’s western neighbor, Norland has been vocal on Libyan affairs, regularly visiting the country and tweeting, almost daily, about its politics. At one point he seemed to be the only American diplomat closely following the Libyan conflict while the Trump administration appeared to be distancing itself.
The United States has some moral responsibility toward Libya because it was under Barack Obama that it took part in the 2011 military intervention in support of the armed rebellion, dubbed the Libyan Revolution, that toppled former leader Moammar Gadhafi, and which ended up sending Libya into chaos, conflict and lawlessness.
In what is seen as an emerging new US active approach to Libya, US Acting Assistant Secretary of State Joey Hood visited Tripoli May 18 where he met his counterpart Najala al-Mangoush, Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh and Presidency Council chief Mohamed al-Menfi. Hood is the highest US official to visit the country since 2014 when the US Embassy staff relocated to Tunisia because of the deteriorating security in the country.
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