Africa News of Friday, 22 January 2021

Source: africanews.com

Libya welcomes Biden's lifting of Muslim travel ban

U.S. President Joe Biden U.S. President Joe Biden

The Libyan House of Representatives welcomed U.S. President Joe Biden's decision to lift the travel ban on Libyan citizens and allowing them to enter the United States, a Libyan parliament member said Friday.

The travel ban was imposed by former U.S President Donald Trump at the beginning of his administration in 2016 and banned citizens from several Muslim countries, including Libya, from entering the American soil.

Libyan Parliament Member Ibrahim Al-Zgad said the harsh ban imposed on Libyans was a sign of Trump's ''madness,'' adding that the former U.S president had issued it in ''one of his crazy moments.''

He continued sarcastically saying that Trump seemed to be affected by the ''mad cow'' disease and that his decision was issued as a "dance of the slaughtered rooster" and now his term is over.

Al-Zgad said the travel ban had nothing to do with the U.S. - Arab relation, which has always been ''excellent.''

Lifting the travel ban was one of the first 15 decrees signed by Biden on his first day at the White House.

Commenting on the new U.S president, Al-Zgad said Libya has little hope in Joe Biden, because he is from the Democratic Party.

The party, Al-Zgad said, is the one that contributed to the crisis in Libya in the past, headed by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who supported the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and Libya, and enabled them to rule.

Libya slid into chaos following the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that overthrew and killed the country's longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi.

The North African country is today divided into two rival administrations, each backed by an array of militias and foreign powers.

The administration backed by military commander Khalifa Hifter rules the east and south while the UN-supported government based in Tripoli, controls the west.