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Egypt is communicating with all parties in the Libyan conflict: Foreign Ministry Libya's two parliaments do not have wide enough mandate to decide whether or not to accept the UN agreement, says analyst
Egypt is communicating with all parties involved in Libya's conflict to resolve any obstacles facing UN envoy to Libya Martin Kobler, Egyptian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Ahmed Abu Zeid said Sunday. The UN agreed on a resolution in October to support a UN-backed agreement to form a government of national unity. Abu Zeid said Egypt provided adequate support to the UN backed agreement and Kobler's plan, the official agency MENA reported. Deputy Speaker of the Tripoli Parliament in Libya Awad Abd Al-Sadeq told journalists last week that the General National Congress rejects the UN-backed Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) signed in Skhirat, Morocco on 17 December. He further stated that the MPs who have signed the agreement represent "only themselves". After a meeting between the UN envoy to Libya Martin Kobler and Tripoli Parliament members in Tripoli, Abd Al-Sadeq said that "substantial amendments'' needed to be implemented before the General National Congress could reach a decision on the agreement. Kobler maintained that political negotiations represent the way to resolve the conflict and urges both sides to work within the framework established by the UN. Both parliaments' speakers in Libya refused the UN-backed agreement signed in Morocco by some of the parliament members. Political analyst Youssef Cherif does not believe that the two parliaments in Libya are the ones that decide whether or not to accept the UN agreement. "Both sides' leaderships have a very loose control over the situation. Whether they accept or refuse, there is a lot of fragmentation and there will always be voices coming against their decision," Cherif told Daily News Egypt. It now seems that the Tobruk Parliament is starting to accept the agreement as is General Khalifa Belqasim Haftar. They are open to negotiations, according to Cherif. On the contrary, the opposition against the UN agreement is stronger in Tripoli. "In Tripoli, there is more opposition and this weekend was particularly tense for Kobler when he visited the city. But then this is Libya and the situation can be totally reversed next week," Cherif said. Cherif is not optimistic about the UN-appointed government. "If the UN is trying to do what it did in 1951 when it created the Senoussi Kingdom, then we need to get ready for another 1969 and perhaps quite soon," he said in reference to the coup d'etat led by Muammar Gaddafi in 1969.
