RABAT, Morocco
Libya's rival government administrations appear to have reached consensus on the main elements needed to end the country's ongoing political crisis, the UN’s envoy to the troubled North African country said Sunday.
At a press conference held in the Moroccan city of Skhirat – the venue for ongoing peace talks – UN special envoy Bernardino Leon announced that officials from Libya’s Tripoli-based and Tobruk-based governments had agreed on the main elements of a final political settlement.
At the latest round of UN-backed peace talks, which kicked off Thursday, negotiators from both sides hope to permanently settle the four-year-old conflict.
The UN, meanwhile, has given the two sides until Sept. 20 to resolve their differences and agree to the terms of a unity government.
“We have reached what we consider is a consensus on the main elements,” Leon told reporters on Sunday.
“We are going to distribute the text [of the proposed agreement] to the parties and we are going to work on this text tonight,” he said.
“We believe this text will receive the total support of the two parties – the [Tobruk-based] House of Representatives and the [Tripoli-based] General National Congress (GNC) – and will be endorsed by the rest of the participants in the coming days,” the UN envoy asserted.
The GNC’s delegation to the talks is expected to leave Morocco within 48 hours to submit the proposed text – which calls for the establishment of a unity government shared between elements of both sides – to officials in Tripoli for perusal.
Tobruk government officials, meanwhile, will likewise spend the next two days discussing the terms of the text.
“I hope… it will be possible to have this text ready to be signed by Sept. 20,” Leon said at the press conference.
Libya descended into chaos and bloodshed following the ouster and death of strongman Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
In the four years since, the country’s stark political divisions have produced two rival seats of government, each with its own political institutions and military capacities.
