The United Nations on Saturday confirmed the latest round of talks between representatives of warring parties of Libya in Geneva has ended with no deal on a ceasefire, reported United Nations News.
Five senior officers from the UN-brokered GNA and five others from Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) convened last week in the Swiss city of Geneva amid renewed international efforts to end the conflict. The peace talks were aimed at reaching a ceasefire in Libya.
Haftar had launched an offensive on Tripoli in April last year in an attempt to take over the capital city Tripoli from the UN-backed government. The ongoing war has already killed and injured thousands of people and displaced over 300.000 civilians.
“UNSMIL takes note of the existing consensus around the importance of maintaining the truce that had been announced on 12 January this year, of the necessity to respect it and refrain from violating it,” the United Nations Support Mission said in a statement.
The UNSMIL thanked both parties for agreeing to come to Geneva and showing professional and positive spirit throughout the discussions. The talks were mediated by UN Special Envoy Ghassan Salame. There were no face-to-face meetings between the two parties.
On Thursday, Salame had reported there was progress in the talks aimed at bringing out a permanent ceasefire that would have included a monitoring role for the world body.
Last month at a summit in Berlin, the world leaders also committed to ending all foreign interference in Libya and to uphold a weapons embargo to help end the long-running civil war.
The rivals agreed to a cease-fire on January 12, but both parties exchanged accusations of breaching the no fight deal. The forces loyal to Haftar have continued to harm and kill civilians. Last week, three people, two of them children, were killed in an attack.
