By Jihad Nasr

TRIPOLI, Libya

Aguila Saleh, the speaker of Libya’s Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR), has accepted an invitation to talks from Khaled al-Meshri, the newly-appointed head of Libya’s Supreme Council of State.

On Wednesday, al-Meshri called on Libyan political forces to set aside their narrow differences with a view to resolving the country’s ongoing political crisis.

In a statement issued one day later, HoR spokesman Abdullah Belihaq said Saleh had “welcomed the invitation” to take part in negotiations.

The talks are aimed at reaching consensus over proposed amendments to a UN-brokered political agreement signed in the Moroccan city of Skhirat in late 2015.

Libya has suffered a protracted political crisis since 2011, when a bloody NATO-backed uprising ended with the ouster and death of President Muammar Gaddafi after more than four decades in power.

Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power -- an interim government in Al-Bayda and an internationally-recognized government in Tripoli -- along with a host of heavily-armed militia groups.

The 2015 Skhirat agreement failed to end Libya’s political standoff. The agreement is now in the process of being amended with a view to holding parliamentary and presidential elections sometime later this year.