Summary UNSC will meet in an emergency session as permanent council members expressed support
UNITED NATIONS: (AP) - The U.N. Security Council will meet in an emergency session Wednesday on Libya, as permanent council members expressed support for a resolution on a response to the country s crisis.
The meeting comes as Egypt presses the council to take action after the Islamic State group posted a video of the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians.
At a meeting Tuesday between Egypt s foreign minister and the five permanent council members, "we agreed we would be working together on a draft resolution," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters. He did not give details except to say this would be a different approach than the current coalition that is combating IS in Syria and Iraq.
"They want a resolution of support in the Security Council ... and we re there to support it and do the right thing," Churkin said.
He said he would meet with Libya s foreign minister later Tuesday.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi said in a radio interview aired on Tuesday that creating a U.N.-backed coalition was the best course of action to rid Libya of Islamic extremists.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed al Dairi and the U.N. envoy to Libya are expected to brief the council Wednesday afternoon in a public meeting.
Omar Ihwainish, information officer for Libya s mission to the U.N., told The Associated Press that "there s nothing so far" on any request from his government to the U.N. on the crisis but that the foreign minister was already in New York for meetings and more will be known after that.
Diplomats said Libya would need to submit a letter requesting any U.N. support. The British deputy ambassador to the U.N., Peter Wilson, told reporters that his country had not seen such a letter.
"We re waiting to see what Foreign Minister Shoukry has to say," Wilson said.
Iraq s U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Alhakim told reporters that the Arab Group would be meeting soon and that individual ambassadors had already called the Egyptian ambassador in support. Alhakim said he "absolutely" supports a plan for U.N. action.
