UN adviser urges Libya rivals to meet to solve differences

By Ibrahim al-Khazen
ISTANBUL (AA) – UN special adviser on Libya, Stephanie Williams, on Monday invited the speaker of Libya’s parliament and the head of the High Council of State to meet within ten days for talks.

Williams urged Aquila Saleh, the Speaker of east Libya-based House of Representatives, and Khaled al-Mishri, the head of the Tripoli-based High Council of State, which acts like a senate, to meet to discuss the conflicting points that hinder progress in the talks of the Constitutional Track Committee.

“The Joint Committee achieved a great deal of consensus on the contentious articles in the Libyan Draft Constitution,” Williams told a press conference at the conclusion of the third and final round of talks of the Libyan Constitutional Track Committee in Egypt.

“Differences persist on the measures governing the transitional period leading to elections,” she added.

The UN adviser had attempted to arrange a meeting between Saleh and al-Mishri in Cairo on Saturday, but the meeting failed to take place due to difference on the agenda of the talks.

Egypt hosted the third and last round of the UN-sponsored talks in an effort to reach consensus on the constitutional framework to hold Libya’s long-awaited elections.

Libyans are still waiting for the stalled polls to take place in the hope that the vote will contribute to ending years of armed conflict that has plagued the oil-rich country.

*Writing by Mahmoud Barakat