Libya did not have an ambassador in the Gulf country since October 2016.

Libya has appointed an ambassador to Qatar for the first time in six years, with Mohammed Al-Lafi been named as the envoy to Doha, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Al-Lafi has been a delegate in the United Nations-sponsored Libyan Political Dialogue Forum since 2020, which contributed to the “formation of the current interim executive authority,” in Libya, according to reports.

Upon the gradual de-escalation of events in Libya last summer, the factions had agreed to a new unity government, the Government of National Unity, which was formed in March 2021. The unity government was “mandated” to unify institutions and “prepare” for elections last December, however the event was postponed and is now to take place in June.

As the incumbent government of Libya is disputed among Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, the Prime Minister of Libya’s interim Government of National Unity, and Fathi Bashagha, the Libyan politician who currently claims to be the interim Prime Minister of Libya, the Dbeibeh government warned that it would consider any attempt to storm its headquarters as an “attack against the government,” reports noted.

The Libyan House of Representatives in February voted by majority for Bashagha to become the country’s new Prime Minister, reports said.

Qatari ambassador to Libya

In July 2021, Qatar appointed Khaled Al-Dosari as its envoy to Libya for the first time since 2014 following the embassy’s closure due to the shut down of many foreign missions in Tripoli as the country split between “warring administrations,” Reuters said.

In June 2014, retired general Khalifa Haftar urged both Turkish and Qatari nationals to leave “anarchic eastern Libya within two days, accusing both their countries of supporting ‘terrorism’,” Reuters reported.

Haftar had been back by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Russia, reports said.