Libyan camps agree to open candidacy process for key posts
The process, set to run until Feb.2, aims to quickly fill several strategic posts in order to facilitate collaboration with an interim executive body set to be elected next week in Geneva
Representatives from rival Libyan camps said a candidacy process would open on Tuesday for key institutional appointments, ater a new round of talks in Morocco on ending nearly a decade of conflict.
The process, set to run until Feb.2, aims to quickly fill several strategic posts in order to facilitate collaboration with an interim executive body set to be elected next week in Geneva, a joint statement said.
Oil-rich Libya has been riven by civil war since a Nato-backed uprising that ousted long-time dictator Moamer Qadhafi in 2011.
The Un-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) is based in the capital, while a House of Representatives, which does not recognise the Tripoli administration, is based in the east.
A fragile ceasefire between the two sides, agreed in Geneva last October, has largely held, despite threats by eastern military strongman Khalifa Hatar to resume fighting.
The talks that opened in Bouznika, south of the Moroccan capital Rabat, bring together representatives from the Tobruk-based House of Representatives and the Tripoli-based High Council of State, which advises the GNA.
The GNA had said the negotiations would centre on appointments to the country’s “sovereign” posts.
The joint statement said the positions included the heads of the central bank, electoral commission, anti-corruption commission, supreme court and administrative control authority as well as the atorney general.
The parties also agreed to form working groups to deal with the candidacy process for the posts, which have long been points of contention between the rival administrations, the statement added.
Once finalised, the candidacies will be presented to representatives of the two sides.
The talks are the latest in several inter-libyan dialogues held since September in the North African kingdom.
At separate talks in Geneva earlier this week, Libyan representatives voted to pass a mechanism to choose an interim executive to govern until elections planned for Dec.24.
At Un-backed talks in Egypt on Wednesday, Libyan envoys agreed to hold a constitutional referendum before the December polls.
Any withdrawal or end to foreign interference “does not depend on the Libyans but on the outside powers,” said Khaled Al Montasser, professor of international relations at Tripoli University.
Turkey on Friday welcomed a deal reached at Un-backed talks for Libya’s warring factions to set up an interim executive to rule the North African country until polls in December.
Turkey has backed the GNA with military advisers, materiel and mercenaries, repelling an advance on Tripoli by Hatar’s forces, and it also has a military base in Al Watiya on the border with Tunisia under a 2019 military accord.
Last December, parliament in Ankara extended by 18 months its authorisation for Turkey’s troop deployment in Libya, in apparent disregard of the ceasefire deal.
“The mercenaries are unlikely to leave Libya so long as the countries which have engaged them have not guaranteed their interests in the new transitional phase,” said Montasser, referring to the multiple tracks of Un-sponsored talks currently underway.
“Their presence keeps alive the threat of military confrontation at any moment, while the current calm staying in place seems uncertain,” he said.
Most of the foreign forces are concentrated around Sirte, at Al Jufra air base held by Hatar’s forces 500 kilometres south of Tripoli and further west in Al Watiya.
“The context of the presence of mercenaries and foreign fighters is not the same in the east and the west,” said Jalal Al Fitouri, another university professor in the capital.
“The extension of the Turkish presence shows that Ankara doesn’t intend to leave,” he said, whereas the “terms of the contract” between Hatar and Russian mercenaries remain unknown.
Moscow denies any link to the mercenaries, but UN experts last May confirmed the presence of fighters of the Wagner group, allegedly close to Russian President Vladimir Putin.