AFP
by Jalal al Makhfi, Guillaume Klein – Skhirat (Morocco) (AFP)
Talks in Morocco between Libya’s rival parliaments to form a unity government will resume Thursday to give the parties time to prepare for a decisive phase, UN envoy Bernardino Leon said.
“The UN mission has decided to give the parties time to organise and prepare for this decisive phase,” Leon said after mediating between the internationally recognised legislature and a rival body.
“They will be back here on Thursday, and they have to come all of them ready to negotiate,” he told reporters in Skhirat, near Rabat.
Libya has been teeming with weapons since the 2011 revolution that toppled longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi, with rival militias and administrations battling for power.
The oil-rich North African country has two parliaments and two governments.
The internationally recognised legislature was elected in June and is based in the eastern city of Tobruk, while the rival Islamist-backed General National Congress (GNC) is in the capital, Tripoli.
They are discussing the form new government would take and the terms of a cessation of hostilities in the violence-wracked country, where the Islamic State group has gained a foothold.
Last week representative from the two sides held UN-mediated indirect talks and then direct discussions.
Leon said more MPs from Tobruk were expected to join those in Morocco to reinforce their team and broaden the scope of the negotiations.
And he warned that time was running out.
“The crisis in Libya is deepening in all aspects. To reach a solution soon… Libya cannot wait anymore,” said Leon, insisting tha the country’s salvation must be a political and not a military one.
He said talks were focusing on the formation of “the national unity government, which is the most important element, and the security arrangements.”
He described them as “complex, difficult and challenging” and said that is why the UN mission in Libya (UNSMIL) agreed to give the parties “a few days to prepare”.
– Haftar ‘war criminal’ –
Earlier Tobruk-based lawmaker Mohammed Sharif Elouafi had told reporters Leon had agreed a request by his group to postpone the talks “to ensure they are solid”.
GNC representative Mohammed Saleh al-Makhzum said he “understood” Leon’s decision to delay talks until next week but criticised the absence of several lawmakers from Tobruk in Morocco.
“We are still waiting to be informed on the reasons for the absence of representatives from the other side,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, GNC member Omar Hamiddane said the Tripoli-based body had asked UNSMIL to clarify its position on the nomination last week by the Tobruk parliament of anti-Islamist General Khalifa Haftar as new army chief.
Haftar’s appointment had raised fears that it could derail efforts by Leon to push ahead with the political dialogue.
He is opposed by the Fajr Libya militia alliance, which seized Tripoli last summer.
Hamiddane denounced Haftar, who launched an offensive last May against Islamists in Libya’s second city, Benghazi, as a “war criminal”.
Meanwhile, the European Union is considering dispatching a civil or a military mission to Libya if the talks on forming a government succeed, an official said Friday.
“We have in mind both military and civilian missions to contribute to the protection of an eventual government of national unity,” the official said.
The remarks come ahead of a meeting Monday in Brussels of EU foreign ministers set to discuss ways of supporting any new administration in Libya.
Europe is increasingly worried about a tide of immigrants crossing the Mediterranean from Libya’s shores to flee violence and poverty, as well as possible attacks from IS affiliates based in Libya.
