| ROME, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte and Defense Minister Elisabetta Trenta on Saturday sought to defuse reports of disarray within government ranks over the escalation of violence in Libya.
The eastern-based military forces led by Khalifa Haftar launched a military operation last week attempting to take over western Libya, the capital Tripoli in particular, where the UN-backed government is based. The government forces there have fought back. The Haftar-led army is allied with Libya's eastern-based government. The politically divided North African country has been struggling to make a democratic transition amid clashes and chaos since the fall of former leader Muammar Gaddafi's government in 2011. Italy supports the U.N.-backed government led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj. It opened an embassy in Tripoli in 2017, and sent a 300-member military task force as part of a "bilateral mission for assistance and support in Libya", according to the defence ministry. Also in 2017, Italy struck a deal with the government led by al-Sarraj to stop people traffickers' boats loaded with migrants and asylum seekers from leaving for Italy, approved a mission to support the Libyan Coast Guard in the fight against migrant traffickers, and allocated six million euros (6.8 million U.S. dollars) to ensure human rights are respected in migrant detention camps in Libya. In an interview with Il Fatto Quotidiano newspaper on Saturday, Conte downplayed Friday's report in La Stampa newspaper that Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has talked to his Libyan counterpart, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Maitig, and claimed that France is trying to undermine the al-Sarraj government. "I have no reason to think that France could have interests other than in Libya's stability and full recovery," Conte told Il Fatto Quotidiano. "An unstable Libya certainly would not allow France to pursue possible national economic interests." Conte was at pains to reiterate that the Italian government is united in its approach to the Libya crisis. | 
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