George Vella.

Maltese diplomats in Tripoli have been temporarily relocated to Malta amid security concerns and increasing pressure for recognition from Libya’s two rival parliaments, the Foreign Affairs Minister said yesterday.

“No one put a revolver to their head and there were no bomb threats, but the pressure had piled up through phone calls, shadowing and request for information and data,” George Vella told a news conference yesterday.

“From the feedback we received from our experienced diplomats, the message was clear. Both sides are putting pressure for recognition and are insisting on ignoring the other.”

Malta’s embassy is based in Tripoli, which is currently run by a government that does not enjoy international recognition, while the parliament recognised by the EU and the UN is 1,000km away in Tobruk.

While not recognising the Tripoli administration, Malta had remained open to both sides and participated in efforts to bring the two together.

Over recent days, however, Maltese diplomats were in an uncomfortable situation and reported being followed in the streets and receiving calls, mostly from the Tripoli government. Such messages could be ignored no longer, the minister said.

I decided not to risk the personal security of our people in Tripoli

“I decided not to risk the personal security of our people in Tripoli and to relocate them to Malta in just the same way other embassies had relocated to Tunisia,” he said.

Malta’s ambassador to Libya, Mannie Galea, was last week asked to return to the island to discuss the situation.

The island’s two first secretaries returned on Sunday and will continue working temporarily as the Libya embassy is not being closed down.

As a precautionary measure, the ministry did not release the names of the recalled diplomats.

The consular service had already been halted in August and visas could be issued through Tunisia or the Italian and Hungarian embassies, which are still operating in Libya.

Meanwhile, locally engaged personnel were keeping the Maltese embassy open for as long as possible and those in Libya could call the crisis centre numbers 2204 2200 or 8007 2203 for help. The government had no intention of relocating the diplomats to Tobruk, Dr Vella said.

The situation in Libya was fluid and very complicated, he noted, adding that Malta was discussing the way forward with its European counterparts.

At the beginning of the year, Libya was governed by the General National Congress, which failed to stand down when its mandate was over in January.

In May, conflict erupted and in the following month new elections appointed a council to replace the GNC.

Islamists, who suffered a blow in these elections, retaliated with Operation Libya Dawn.

As a result, today the western part is controlled by Libya Dawn, which seized Tripoli in August, while the internationally recognised Parliament and government fled to the eastern city of Tobruk.

The situation was complicated further on November 6, when the Libyan Supreme Court invalidated the election of the internationally recognised parliament in Tobruk.

Yesterday Dr Vella urged Libyans not to put Malta “between a rock and a hard place” and said the decision to relocate temporarily had been a “painful” one.

The government was not taking sides. The dilemmas, he explained, were whether Malta should recognise only the Parliament in Tobruk and ignore the other one, and, if the one in Tripoli was to be accredited, what recognition it merited.