UPDATE - Political track of Libya talks due to start Feb. 26: UN

UPDATES WITH MORE QUOTES FROM UN ENVOY, ADDS DETAILS

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - A joint military commission, representing Libya's UN-recognized government and eastern Libyan forces, has made some progress in its quest to turn the current truce into a "full-fledged ceasefire," said the UN's Libya envoy.

Ghassan Salame's remarks came after the commission met for a fourth day in Geneva on Thursday. He said it would resume again on Friday.

Speaking at a news conference following the meeting, Salame said: "We are still working on refining our basic draft and on bridging the gap on a few points of divergence that still exist between the two delegations."

The UN envoy said both sides reached "convergence on a number of points," but there were two or three issues that needed more attention.

"We are talking about what is acceptable to both sides in Libya to translate it from a truce to a fully-fledged agreement on a cease-fire," said Salame.

He met with the joint military commission made of five high ranking officers from the two sides of the battlefront in Libya and praised them for their "professionalism".

The current talks have three tracks: military, economic, and political.

Salame said they are aiming to start the political track of talks with 40 representatives from each side in Geneva on Feb. 26.

He said that during the peace talks, negotiators would be helped by "more calm" on the fronts and by the absence of any provocative act on the military side by any of the parties in the conflict.

According to Salame, the second track of talks, which is the economic and financial track, will be held in Cairo on Feb. 9.

On Jan. 12, Libya's conflicting parties announced a truce in response to a joint call by the Turkish and Russian leaders. However, talks for a permanent cease-fire ended without an agreement after eastern-based warlord Khalifa Haftar left Moscow without signing the deal.

All parties at the Berlin conference had asked Libya's Prime Minister Fayez al Sarraj and warlord Khalifa Haftar, who were in Berlin but not at the conference, "to extend the truce in order for us to give a chance for diplomacy."

The Jan. 21 Berlin agreement commits the signatories not to interfere in Libya's civil war, to support a cease-fire, to honor a widely broken UN arms embargo, and to support a UN-facilitated political process, Salame had said at the time of the agreement.