Libya suspends foreign minister over Israeli talks amid angry protests

Libya , (The Palestine Information Centre)Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah says he has suspended the North African country’s top diplomat after Israel’s foreign ministry said their foreign ministers had met the previous week.

Najla el-Mangoush has been “temporarily suspended” and will be subject to an “administrative investigation” by a commission chaired by the justice minister, Dbeibah said on Sunday evening in an official decision posted on Facebook.

The Libyan foreign ministry sought to play down the matter, and described it as a “chance and unofficial encounter”, but news of the meeting had already led to street protests in several cities.

The political row broke out Sunday after the Israeli foreign ministry said the two top diplomats had met the previous week.

The ministry said Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen and Mangoush, his Libyan counterpart in the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity, spoke at a meeting in Rome hosted by Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani.

“I spoke with the foreign minister about the great potential for the two sides from their relations,” Cohen asserted in a statement.