Libya's foreign ministry summoned the US chargé d'affaires on Sunday to protest against rally statements by President Donald Trump it described as "offensive", after he called the North African nation "terror-infested", Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters

The ministry said it rejected any statements that "undermine the dignity of its people or diminish their standing", according to Reuters. At Saturday's rally in Perry, Georgia, Trump said Senator Jon Ossoff had personally sponsored a bill to bring migrants from "terror-infested countries like Libya, Yemen, Haiti, Somalia", and revived a vulgar term he had used for such countries during his first term.

Libya's rival administrations in the east and west both denounced Trump's remarks, Reuters reported, rejecting attempts to draw Libya into what they called "electoral debates" — a rare point of agreement between the two sides.

Trump responded on Truth Social on Sunday night, saying the US was committed to ties with Libya and calling its people "proud, resilient, hospitable, and deserving of peace and prosperity". "We respect the Libyan people and the sacrifices that brave Libyans made fighting ISIS, the common enemy of both our peoples, but Libya cannot remain a corridor for illegal migration, and this must end now," he wrote, according to Reuters.