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Egyptian Officials Hold Rare Talks with GNA in Libya’s Tripoli

A photo released by GNA Interior Minister Bashagha shows the Egyptian delegation meeting Libyan officials on Sunday.
A photo released by GNA Interior Minister Bashagha shows the Egyptian delegation meeting Libyan officials on Sunday.
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Egyptian Officials Hold Rare Talks with GNA in Libya’s Tripoli

A photo released by GNA Interior Minister Bashagha shows the Egyptian delegation meeting Libyan officials on Sunday.
A photo released by GNA Interior Minister Bashagha shows the Egyptian delegation meeting Libyan officials on Sunday.

An Egyptian delegation kicked off on Sunday an official visit to the Libyan capital Tripoli, the first since 2014.

The delegation included senior officials from the general intelligence, foreign ministry and Egyptian committee tasked with following up on Libyan affairs.

It met with senior officials from the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is headed by Fayez al-Sarraj. The officials met with his deputy Ahmed Maiteeq, the GNA foreign and interior ministers, commander of the armed forces, and commander of the western operations Osama al-Juwaili.

Interior Minister Fathi Bashagha said talks focused on joint security challenges and bolstering security cooperation between Cairo and Tripoli. They also discussed ways to support the recent ceasefire, the outcomes of the 5+5 committee meetings, United Nations efforts in holding political dialogue and ways to resolve the crisis through political and peaceful means.

Egypt, which enjoys strong ties with the Libyan administration in the east, has in recent weeks been opening up to the GNA. In a sign of the new rapprochement, the delegation visited the Egyptian embassy in Tripoli. The mission has been shut for years and the visit may be a precursor to its reopening.

Pro-GNA media quoted a diplomatic source as saying that the visit was the beginning of an attempt to restore diplomatic relations. Libyan officials had requested from their visitors that Egypt restore consular services and resume flights between Tripoli and Cairo airport.

The Egyptian officials did not hold talks with either Defense Minister Salah al-Namroush or Sarraj.

The delegation’s visit coincided with that of Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, who met with GNA officials.

Informed Libyan sources revealed that war in the country was imminent after receiving confirmed information that Akar had discussed with the GNA a war plan that would target the Libyan National Army (LNA), commanded by Khalifa Haftar.

The war would target LNA positions in the central cities of Sirte and al-Jufra.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that despite regional and international efforts to avert a new conflict, “war is on the horizon.”

They said that Turkey was seeking to launch a surprise attack against the LNA to force it to retreat from Sirte al-Jufra.

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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.