As participants in the UN sponsored talks on Libya penned their initials to the fifth draft of the agreement that had been submitted to them 12 July, Bernardino Leon, the UN envoy and head of the UN Special Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), expressed his hope that the agreement would mark “a first but very important step on the road to peace in Libya”. But even as millions in Libya also hope that the agreement will succeed in restoring peace and filling the political and security vacuum that has prevailed since the fall of the Gaddafi regime, warfare persists and continues to spread and the combatants themselves appear indifferent to the UN-sponsored negotiations and their results. Libyans who had taken part in other tracks of the negotiating process were also invited to the signing ceremony. Thus, the representatives who had taken part in the dialogue between political leaders and activists that was hosted in Algeria, and participants from the Libyan municipal councils dialogue that had taken place in Geneva, Brussels and Tunis, also initialled the draft agreement. Absent from the ceremony were representatives of the General National Congress (GNC) that continues to control the Libyan capital and that had declared its rejection of the current draft. In spite of that conspicuous absence, Libyans now hope that the agreement will bear fruit in a cessation of hostilities and in the creation of an inclusive national unity government capable of steering the country through the remainder of the interim phase until new general elections are held. That would be once the Constituent Assembly completes its designated task of drafting a new and permanent constitution. For the international community, a Libyan consensus that would enable the creation of national unity government and a unified army would ease much of the anxiety and awkwardness it feels, as it would then be able to furnish support and assistance without constantly being accused by one faction or the other of bias in favour of the other side. More importantly for Libya is that it would finally have the opportunity to begin reconstruction of the country that had been decimated by the war against the Gaddafi regime and then by the civil war that has been raging for two years since the country was torn between an elected parliament and government based in Tobruk and the officially terminated GNC that seized control of Tripoli. Soon after the general elections that created the new parliament to which the GNC was to hand over power, the GNC resurrected itself and, subsequently, in September 2014, it created a parallel government in Tripoli, ostensibly in response to the alliance between the elected parliament and Operation Dignity, launched several months previously by retired General Khalifa Haftar whom the Tobruk parliament officially reinstated in service and whose forces then moved to confront his adversaries in Tripoli. The agreement, should it succeed in producing concrete progress on the ground, will also generate a new consensual climate between the Libyan factions and the international community and open the doors to a formula acceptable to all parties to wage an effective war against terrorism and specifically against the Islamic State (IS) Libyan franchise that has taken advantage of the security breakdown and factional strife to seize control of important and strategic parts of the country. It is also hoped that the draft agreement will inspire Libya's many tribes, regions and cities, which also contribute to shaping the complex weave of rifts and tensions that have torn the country, to embrace the peaceful solution. Nevertheless, it may still require some incentives and powers of persuasion to convince reluctant parties to accept the formula and focus on creating the necessary conditions to end the warfare. As for the rejectionists, they maintain that the current formula does not safeguard their rights and gains to the same extent it does their adversaries. The chief holdout is the GNC, the legislative author of the Libya Dawn Operation in western Libya, which still has its hopes set on powers equivalent to the House of Representatives in Tobruk. GNC representatives in the successive rounds of the Skhirat talks had submitted various proposals designed to stake a central role for the GNC during the fourth interim period ushered in by the new agreement. Although the GNC boycotted the ceremony in Skhirat in which participants initialled the draft agreement, UN envoy and UNSMIL chief Leon and others continued to press on the GNC the need to sign. Sometimes carrot and stick tactics were used, such as cautioning the GNC that they could become subject to international sanctions for obstructing the dialogue process or, conversely, promising that there would be further opportunities to discuss the draft after signing. Leon's remarks during the signing ceremony in which he promised the GNC that the draft would be open to discussion again conflict with his statements to the UN Security Council (UNSC). In the UNSC session, held the week after the ceremony in Skhirat, Leon said that the draft that had been signed by the Libyan parties was “final”. This suggests that he had not been sincere in his dealings with the GNC. Or at least that is how the GNC and its supporters read it, for they charged that the UN envoy was “not serious” in his statements and that he had “manipulated the Libyan parties taking part in the dialogue process in order to obtain what he wanted rather than what the Libyans wanted”. The GNC and its supporters then inveighed against the current draft agreement. It contained many shortcomings that could subordinate the sovereignty of the Libyan state to the UN, the international community and world powers through the national consensus government over which negotiations are to be held in the forthcoming days, according to reports leaked from the UN and participants in the dialogue process. The GNC and its supporters argue that the current situation in the country and the difficulties involved in ensuring a disengagement and withdrawal of militia forces, as is stipulated under the agreement, could compel the consensus government, should one be formed, to appeal to the Security Council for help in order to perform its task and resume control over government establishments in the capital or other cities that may be considered as possible government headquarters. The Security Council might therefore be compelled to intervene militarily in Libya once again, this time in order to protect the government. This, the GNC argument holds, would trigger strong sensitivities throughout the country and, in turn, strengthen the influence of extremist and terrorist groups and drive others to join the ranks of those groups to fight what they regard as another Western occupation of Libya, thereby aggravating the Libya crisis further instead of solving it. The city that the consensus government would use as its base is also the subject of heated controversy among the Libyan factions. The GNC and Libya Dawn commanders insist on Tripoli while the House of Representatives, the military command close to Haftar and the advocates of the federalist system want the government headquarters to be located in central Libya, in Ras Lanouf near the petroleum crescent so as to be out of reach of the militias that control Tripoli. Such controversies underscore the hurdles that need to be overcome in order to make tangible process towards peace. Still, there have been reports earlier this week that the GNC is reconsidering its stance and that it may rejoin the dialogue process following a meeting with the UN envoy and other dialogue participants in the forthcoming days. Libyan parties and UNSMIL sources have also announced that talks will resume again in Skhirat to discuss the annexes of the draft agreement and that the first annex concerns the creation of the national consensus government and the mechanisms for choosing its members. In this regard, Mohamed Al-Dayri, foreign minister in the interim government, stated following his meeting with his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukri in Cairo, that the opportunities for creating a national consensus government have become great. He added that consultations would begin in the forthcoming days over this question and expressed his optimism that they would bear fruit.
