Western Mediterranean foreign ministers meet in Marseille

PARIS – The foreign ministers of countries in the western Mediterranean Sea region met Friday to discuss migration and the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria and elsewhere.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault chaired the one-day meeting in the French port city of Marseille along with his Moroccan counterpart, Salaheddine Mezouar.

The leaders grappled with the fight against human and arms traffickers who exploit migrants crossing by sea from Libya to Europe.

Salaheddine Mezouar, foreign minister of Morocco, said that a political agreement signed in December 2015 between Libya’s rival parties must be fully enforced otherwise this “would be a catastrophe for this country.”

Libya has been mired in conflict since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, with rival parliaments and governments emerging in the east and west, each backed by an array of militias and tribes.

The meeting brought together ministers from France, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Malta, as well as Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and Mauritania in North Africa.