Sarraj stresses country does not tolerate more conflicts

UNSMIL has produced a surprisingly bullish summary of today’s resumed Joint Drafting Committee talks in Tunis,  saying there were only a few remaining gaps to be filled before agreement could be reached.

On Monday evening the House of Representatives (HoR) delegation said itwas withdrawing from the process accusing the State Council (SC) of obstruction and bad faith.

UNSMIL chief Ghassan Salamé postponed further discussion until today. He clearly persuaded the HoR delegation to return to the table. The UN organisation explained this evening “Bilateral and trilateral meetings with the UNSMIL team, as well as internal consultations within the delegations over the past two days, succeeded in bringing both sides a step closer”.

UNSMIL said there has been agreement on the separation of executive powers between the Presidency Council (PC) and a ministerial cabinet.  It also said that “for the most part” the powers and responsibilities of each body were “identified”.

UNSMIL also explained that the Joint Drafting Committee had agreed on the decision-making processes of the PC which would be cut to three members. It had also agreed on the criteria necessary for someone to be nominated for PC membership.

UNSMIL concluded by saying that: “More technical work is still required to further refine the outstanding texts.  The Joint Drafting Committee will resume its session at UNSMIL tomorrow to bridge the few remaining gaps”.

Local media reported sources from the dialogue committee of the House of Representatives (HoR) as saying that the UNSMIL's Head Ghassan Salame met with the Heads of the HoR and High Council of State's (HCS) committees Faraj Mousa and Abdelsalam Nasiya.

The sources added that the UNSMIL presented via Salame new ideas for them to ponder upon to resume the Tunisia-hosted negotiations.

The HoR committee was supposed to have a closed meeting in order to discuss the ideas and proposals of Salame, the sources added, saying that the meeting will review everything was proposed over the last days.

The UNSMIL suspended the meetings on Monday after the HoR committee had withdrawn, accusing the HCS of being unclear in their demands, calling on them to present written guarantees of implementing of what has been agreed upon in the first round of the Tunisia meetings early this month.

Whereas, the HCS reaffirmed that it did not call for any amendments and the HoR is the one that rejected approving the Libyan Political Agreement and demanded it be amended, requesting the HoR to present written documents for what it wants to be modified in the agreement.

In the meantime, sources from the meeting confirmed that the reason behind the HoR's withdrawal is the objection of the HCS to annulling Article 08 of the additional provisions, which says all military posts would be vacant, including Khalifa Haftar's, as it scraps his current post at the HoR army.

On the political side, Head of Government of National Accord (GNA) Fayez al-Sarraj stressed the importance of holding the parliamentary and presidential elections to resolve the current crisis in the country.

Following his meeting with Turkey’s special envoy to Libya Emrullah Isler, Sarraj preferred not to repeat the transitional phase since this would bring new burdens to the country, affirming that the parliamentary and presidential elections is the only way out along with providing the adequate climate.

In his statement, Sarraj pointed out that some are objecting under the pretext of the security condition while the main reason for objecting over elections lies in concerns of losing positions, interests and privileges as well as removing some figures from the political scene.

In his turn, Turkey’s special envoy to Libya Emrullah Isler renewed his country’s support to Sarraj government and the road-map announced, expressing Turkey’s readiness to cooperate with all Libyan parties.

Isler also revealed the intention to proceed the agreed upon projects and the determination to implement new projects in Libya. There is a common ground for cooperation between Turkey and Libya, agreed Sarraj, expressing his government’s wish that this cooperation expands to include various service and economic fields.

Reliable sources affirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat Tunisia’s impartiality towards various Libyan parties – they expected that the tour outcome of United Nations special envoy to Libya Ghassan Salameh would be decisive in taking decisions towards the return of Libyan parties to the dialogue.

In a related matter, more than 4,000 migrants have been transferred to a hangar in the coastal city of Sabratha by a UN migration agency, the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) said. In a written statement, UNSMIL said the International Organization for Migration (IOM) is providing emergency assistance to migrants in Sabratha’s Dahman district who had been “previously held in numerous informal detention centers and camps.”