since pre and this conference this summit today by bringing together of those 2 players in moscow together with turkey one has to say last week already of this week and without much success the influence that russia has on general seems to be not as significant as russia itself things but it is a very significant player in that whole and that whole context obviously we have so many international players here so many foreign entities all vying for their own particular interest but if libya falls and that's really what's at stake here if it falls what does it mean for europe start with you again. well i mean libya has been very unstable ever since general gaddafi was toppled and killed and the whole question of on the one hand was happens to migrant flows has been. unresolved in a sense since then we know that there are hundreds of thousands of african migrants

in camps in libya some of them are being exploited as mercenaries some of them being forced to do work others are being forced into prosecute him put into prostitution it's a very very difficult situation for the growth for the migrants in libya. let's just look at the live pictures here this is the chinese flag on this because this will be the representative of china yes these talks i'm afraid i don't know exactly who it is is that it's certainly not the tribune. you see him of course being greeted by gaining of america and the u.n. secretary general. so we were talking about the necessity for stability in libya obviously for europe. the migrant flows play a very significant role in that we had a situation at one stage where tens of thousands of migrants were coming across the

mediterranean sea thousands of them were dying in a ramshackle boats in the in that sea and there was a kind of migrant crisis in europe that is not the case anymore at the moment for various reasons having to do with libya that is only one aspect of the other importance is obviously it is an important oil producing country it also has very significant gas reserves and there is at the moment an attempt by various countries around the mediterranean sea to redistribute influence and we distribute the resources in that area arriving. another representative here. the head of government in italy here is the prime minister of italy and his foreign minister di maggio. again being greeted by. a good terrace or 2 hosts of today's meeting that would be separate country. you know as we watch these

these men being greeted by the german chancellor we know the year we're still waiting for some very significant players just moments ago of course we talked about letting the putin who's expected to arrive at these talks we understand that he held the bilateral talks with her one of course the leader in turkey and these 2 are very much on opposing sides on on this. conflict. let me turn to you what's at stake here for for turkey. both turkey has some very direct interest in terms of oil fields in the mediterranean in fact. turkish president has already started moving towards deploying troops to back the un backed government and me and the sorry assad raj and the question really is whether taki will be constructive

in this continuing process or whether it's like italy for instance in his prime and we just so will always keep an eye on its own particular oil interests is he of course also having very close relations with libya that reached way back into the gadhafi regime and this will be the challenge throughout to get all of these countries with a particular interest to give some ground in the name of stability in the right i think it was seeing a european union flag correct me if i'm wrong this is the european union flag. this is the european union. foreign minister as it were the head of the european union foreign service whose name i'm afraid at the moment escapes me and earlier just before him we saw the arrival of the representative of the united arab emirates who obviously also play a very significant role in this conflict they are the major so motos of general

hostile how how delicate a situation is is as we as we just saw the the european union representative head into to translate for them for for the european union as an entity i mean this is a situation that has really put them at odds with each other you have france in italy opposing the position of germany you have turkey on one side and of course russia is not part of the e.u. but you you have all of these conflicting players what does this mean for the european union the european union has been struggling to make its way felt in that region in the middle east partly because it is it consists of more than 20 countries who have to coordinate their policies in any matter also in foreign policy also in this region that makes it very difficult to find unanimity and makes it very slow to move but at the same time we have to say that especially in the case of libya there are conflicting interests within the european union we have

especially france and italy who both have significant economic interest in libya both very much engaged in developing oil fields and developing gas. there and have been supporting opposite sides of this conflict for some time more recently they have now fallen to common voice and are now. together hosting this. summit together with angela merkel and so on so the europeans are finding it difficult to find a common voice but i'm making some. progress as the summit shows. michelle i want to throw that question at you i mean what are you hearing in terms of the strain that that puts on the connection between european countries in the union. will they know that their diplomatic credibility is on the line it's been

a constant struggle axes since the european union came into being to actually find a common foreign union european union. policy on external relations and libya is really a very sore point here where you find european allies like italy and france on different sides of this conflict will actually mention on the president it does not go it's possible this well as you're speaking. yes and well let's look at the african union region there because i had the opportunity recently to travel with the german chancellor to the song whole region in northern africa and she was reminded by those very countries who are in this struggle against terrorism but also trying to stop or something like stable states in poor countries like kenya faso for instance that if libya was to fool that libya actually is the exporting instability that it's actually a withdrawal area for terrorist groups because it is in chaos so really there

is a lot of pressure from all sides to find something like common ground to stop this descending into chaos it's been a very long road to that realisation also within the years are you ready to michelle i just want to know here is a lot to get a sense of who these people are this is out sisi the. leader in egypt egypt. into the chancellor. i'm sorry michelle please continue yes and he he also is a major player he also has a stake in this conflict and he also is not somebody who is known to adhere to international diplomacy necessarily has a very particular interest in libya and won't be an easy partner and this also believes in pretty much the force on the ground and reality on the ground and this

is where general have to really has a lot to show in fact he blockaded those oil exporting ports of the day before this conference simply to demonstrate the very power he has on the ground for now the united nations its resolutions don't really count for that terribly much having said that the players who are currently gathering around the table here in berlin are the only ones who have the power to turn those dynamics around and to have something like the beginning of a political process the big question is whether there will be enough pressure applied on general haftar to change his stance because he certainly is pretty much in a very strong position in the view of right now. you know understanding of these talks michel is that the main objective here is really to establish some sort of.

cease fire the real issue which is coming coming up with some sort of long term solution in the country doesn't seem to be on the table for example some kind of power sharing for example. what is the thinking behind that as far as you know is it simply to buy some time so that they can iron out some very complicated details . well really that road map pretty much already exists in terms of u.n. resolutions but it simply has no chance of coming to fruition on the ground because . the general. believed in military force and pretty much surprised the international community last april when he was. really starting this siege on tripoli so there is a reality to deal with and all actors here are very much aware of that that doesn't

match with the process that is seen as a very theoretical one with the un backed government in tripoli that has very little control even over tripoli where there are several militia groups controlling different ministries even. as we await more dignitaries to arrive here we know that major players are still not yet gotten there we haven't seen putin from russia we have not seen or heard of one of course from turkey these are the 2 major power brokers in the region who believe they have the high stakes in the outcome here in libya i want to turn that question to you know what is the thinking about not putting the long term solution on the table which is perhaps some kind of power sharing agreement is it again today to buy some time because i think what the negotiators here in the last few months have been preparing this

meeting are trying to do is not to overload the agenda for these talks you can't expect too much from a meeting like this as we said at the beginning it's significant in itself that this meeting is taking place that's so many different players with such conflicting interests and also conflicting personalities one has to say are in fact getting into one room here in berlin talking to each other and trying to thrash out. some kind of conclusion which in fact her. you know the the drafts that we have have 55 points that there are to agree upon much of it is a reaffirmation as not michelle i was saying of united nations resolutions united nations plans that have been in existence for quite some time. but the process i think has to start with a cessation of hostilities and a well established cease fire before any political process any idea of forming

a new government of forming a government of national unity of holding elections whatever any of that can only happen if there is peace in that country so i think the major focus at the moment is to stop those foreign powers that are involved from further fanning the flames sending further weapons into the area from sending missionaries into into those areas from encouraging the competence actually to be to fight to to continue their armed conflict and that is not what has happened in recent days in recent weeks the fact that search took you for instance got involved to the extent that it has that it is now also sending arms its own soldiers and hundreds of mercenaries from the and syria is a fairly recent development. the fact that russia got very deep much deeply involved much more deeply involved militarily is also a fairly recent development so i think these are signs of

a lot signs of further escalation of the conflict that have also contributed to the urgency of having such such discussions in the meantime grader can see diplomatic efforts being made to resolve all this and general general khalifa's men his national army continues to hold a good part of eastern libya including shutting off some key ports. and preventing exports of libya's major major so. of revenue which is oil what impact is that going to have long term. in the diplomatic context well i think this is a power play on the part of khalifa haftar that he is demonstrating to this conference on the eve of these talks how significant his control of various areas big areas in libya is that he in fact controls all exports and the oil fields the interesting thing about that is that the revenues from these oil exports when they flow are in fact still being shared between the 2 warring sides so the

revenues from selling the oil from this new bin national oil company are going both to tripoli both to the internationally recognized government and to tobruk benghazi . crowd and if the oil exports are stopped it's not only. damage damage done to the government in tripoli but it also means that you know huffed on his side may have. less income from the oil sales something i think that even he will not be able to keep going for a significant length of time michel i hope you're still with us here you know one has to temper one's expectations when it comes to these kinds of talks particularly when the emotions are high and there's so much at stake but what's next what if these talks don't. produce any real fruit.