The third round of talks between Libya’s rival east and west administrations began in Egypt’s capital Cairo on Sunday, reported The TRT World.
The third round of talks on constitutional amendments for elections in Cairo comes on the heels of clashes between rival militias late last week.
Libya has for years been split between rival administrations in the east and the west. Libya’s western region is ruled by an array of forces allied with the Tripoli-based UN-backed government of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah. East and southern Libya are controlled by warlord Khalifa Haftar, who is allied with a rival government led by parliament-appointed Prime Minister Fathi Bashaga.
Lawmakers from Libya’s east-based parliament and the High Council of State, an advisory body from western Libya, started the U.N.-brokered negotiations amid concerted international pressure on the two rival factions to put their disputes aside and agree on the election’s legal basis.
The U.N. special adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams, said the talks will continue in a hotel in Cairo till June 19 with the aim of establishing a constitutional framework required to pave way for the national elections in Libya as soon as possible.
In the last two rounds of talks, the parties came to an initial consensus on 137 articles of the constitutional draft, including on rights and freedoms.
Williams said they would continue discussing a handful of disputed articles on legislative and judicial authority.
The dispute over the constitutional framework of the election was one of the major challenges that led to the failure of planned national elections in December. The failure to hold the vote was a major blow to international efforts to end a decade of chaos in Libya.
On Friday, clashes broke out in Tripoli between rival militias. It was not clear what caused the clashes. Authorities in Tripoli said an investigation was opened.
