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Situation in Libya

Libyan MPs declare readiness to move toward conflict settlement

The meeting in Morocco was attended by delegates representing various Libyan political forces

RABAT, November 29. /TASS/. Members of Libya’s House of Representatives, the elected permanent parliament based in the eastern city of Tobruk, said in a joint declaration on Saturday they were ready to move toward settling the nine-year-long conflict.

"We assure the people of Libya of our determination to move toward overcoming the state of conflict and the rift in all governmental bodies, and toward preserving the unity and integrity of the state and its sovereignty across the entire territory," reads the final communique of a consultative meeting that gathered over 110 members of the House of Representatives in the northern Moroccan city of Tangier.

The lawmakers also agreed to hold the next meeting in the Libyan town of Gadamis "in order to seal all decisions aimed at ending the rift in the House of Representatives and, therefore, to give it the opportunity of fulfilling its commitments."

The meeting in Tangers was attended by delegates representing various Libyan political forces and the country’s three historical geographical regions - Tripolitania (west), Cyrenaica (east) and Fezzan (south). The goal of the event was to reconcile diverse stances, overcome differences and lay down a solid foundation for political settlement of the protracted crisis.

For quite a while, the country has had two bodies of executive government - the Government of National Accord under Fayez Sarraj in Tripoli in combination with the Presidential Council he leads (performs the functions of the head of state) and pro-Islamist Supreme Council of State (an exclusively consultative body) and eastern Cabinet of Ministers, which enjoys the backing of the House of Representatives and Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army.

In spring 2019, Haftar launched an offensive towards the capital, while the Tripoli Cabinet of Ministers officially asked Turkey for help and, as a result of Ankara’s active assistance, the GNA managed to regain control over several territories previously occupied by the LNA.

On October 23, in Geneva, participants of Libya’s 5+5 Joint Military Commission (5 representatives from the GNA and the LNA formations each) signed an agreement on a permanent ceasefire, later sealing the deal during the meetings held already in Libyan territory. As a result, a relative calm along the lines of engagement and the agreements between the military paved the way for the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum under the auspices of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) held in Gammarth in the suburbs of Tunisia’s capital from November 9 to November 15.

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