UN envoy to meet Libya's Sarraj in Tripoli

By Mustafa Kamel

TRIPOLI (AA) – UN envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame will meet on Saturday with the head of the Libyan Presidential Council for the UN-backed National Accord government Fayez al-Sarraj in the capital Tripoli.

The meeting comes amid tension in the war-torn country after Khalifa Haftar, commander of forces loyal to East Libya-based government, launched a military campaign to capture Tripoli.

On Friday, Salame attended a session of the UN Security Council during which he submitted a report on the current situation in Tripoli, where Libya’s UN-backed unity government is headquartered.

The UN envoy stressed that he was doing efforts to avoid a military conflict in Tripoli.

Pro-Haftar forces on Friday said they had captured the former Tripoli International Airport on the outskirts of the capital.

Libya has remained beset by turmoil since 2011, when a NATO-backed uprising led to the ouster and death of President Muammar Gaddafi after four decades in power.

Since then, the country’s stark political divisions have yielded two rival seats of power: one in the eastern city of Al-Bayda, to which Haftar is linked, and another in Tripoli.