March 28, 2024
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WASHINGTON — The Biden administration has notified Congress of its plan to restore the US diplomatic presence in Libya, a decade after unrest in the North African country forced American diplomats to evacuate the US Embassy in Tripoli.
The State Department submitted a formal notification to lawmakers this month, a senior State Department official told Al-Monitor, kicking off what the department expects will be a one-to-two-year process to establish “an interim diplomatic facility” in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.
The United States has been without an embassy in Libya since its personnel withdrew under heavy military escort in 2014 amid the budding civil war. American diplomats relocated to Malta and later Tunisia, where they now form a remote mission known as the Libya External Office.