Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte stressed on Tuesday that he was following closely the developments of local and regional preparations for the Libyan national conference scheduled for April.
“We worked so hard for this agreement,” he said, “but the situation in Libya is such that we must wait until all actors have agreed”.
Mohammed bin Taher, political science professor in Misrata University, told 218News that Conte’s remarks indicated the existence of talks between the Libyan parties including those that oppose this conference.
Ben Taher added that the conference, if not held before the end of the march, it will be before May, and it is crystal clear that Italy has been reaching out all parties in the Libyan interior.
He said there was a consensus between France and Italy, where the two sides welcomed the recent Abu Dhabi talks, explaining that the protests of yellow vests have made Paris retract its vision on the Libyan issue.
At the beginning of March, Head of Libya’s internationally recognized government and his rival military strongman met and agreed to hold elections aimed at ending years of instability, the United Nations said.
Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord, Faiez al-Sarraj, met Khalifa Haftarm commander of Libyan National Army, in Abu Dhabi, where they agreed “on the need to end the transitional phase through general elections and on ways to preserve the stability of Libya and unify its institutions,” the UN’s Libya mission tweeted.
Ben Taher explained that the awaited conference is the way to the elections and the constitution, and rejected the House of Representatives speaker, Auqila Saleh’s incitement for a coup against constitutional legitimacy.
Lawyer Faisal al-Sharif believes that foreign interventions are negative, especially as these countries have visions inconsistent with each other, which may affect the talks of the Libyan crisis negatively.
Al-Sharif added there is some progress in the Libyan file, especially with regard to the national conference, which will be held on the Libyan territory, in addition to the presence of a large number of internal parties related to the Libyan issue.
He stressed that all armed forces must sit at the table of negotiations.
The African Union last month called for a global conference in July to try to resolve the conflict in Libya.
It asked the AU Commission “to take, jointly with the United Nations and the Libyan government, all the necessary measures for the organization of presidential and legislative elections in October 2019.”
The AU’s current chief, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, has underscored the need for “African solutions to African problems.”
