Globalpost.com
Xinhua News Agency
Head of the UN Support Mission to Libya (UNSMIL) Bernardino Leon resumed Saturday his talks with General National Congress (GNC) in the Moroccan city of Skhirat after five days pause.
UNSMIL set Sept. 20 as deadline for the GNC negotiating team to submit the new UN deal to the GNC members in Tripoli and bring with them the names of their candidates for the national unity government, but the delegation arrived only hours earlier on Saturday.
UNSMIL told Xinhua that Libya’s internationally recognized House of Representatives (HoR) would send one of its negotiating team to Tobruk to brief its members of the latest updates of the political dialogue in the Moroccan city of Skhirat.
This development came only a day after Libyan lawmakers agreed to rejoin HoR after boycott. The delegate is expected to sell this deal to the other members of the Tobruk legislature.
More than 25 Libyan lawmakers had been boycotting HoR since conflict broke out more than a year ago between two powerful factions who have created rival governments and parliaments.
On Friday, Leon described the agreement as “historic” and “the most important good news that our dialogue has produced so far.”
He noted that he hopes to finalize the political agreement by Sunday.
The UN-brokered political agreement was initialed in July by the Tubrok-based parliament alongside representatives of political parties, municipalities and civil society groups, whereas the GNC did not join the accord.
Libya, a major oil producer in North Africa, has been witnessing a frayed political process after leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled during the 2011 political turmoil.
The country is now deadlocked in a dogfight between the pro-secular army and Islamist militants, which has led to a security vacuum for homegrown extremism to brew.
UNSMIL has sponsored several political dialogues between the country’s political rivals for months in order to end the country’s ongoing crisis.
