3rd round of Libya constitutional talks starts in Egypt

ANKARA

A third round of Libya’s dialogue on the constitutional track kicked off in Egypt’s Red Sea resort of Hurghada on Tuesday, days after the election of a new interim authority in the war-torn country.

Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel and the recently-appointed UN Special Envoy on Libya and Head of the United Nations Support Mission (UNSMIL), Jan Kubis, addressed the opening session.

“The Libyan Constitutional Committee will discuss arrangements for holding a popular referendum on a new constitution,” committee member Naema Elhammi told Anadolu Agency.

She said the committee meetings will continue for three days.

The Constitutional Committee is consisted of 10 members of both Libya’s High Council of State and the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (parliament).

According to Egypt’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, the dialogue will also be attended by Emad al-Sayeh, the head of Libya’s election commission.

The committee had previously held two rounds of talks in Hurghada in September and January.

On Friday, Libya’s rival political groups agreed to form an interim unity government after five days of talks at the UN-led Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) in Switzerland.

Mohammad Younes Menfi was elected to head the Presidency Council of the interim government and Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh as its prime minister. Mossa Al-Koni and Abdullah Hussein Al-Lafi were also voted on the three-man Presidency Council.

Libya has been torn by civil war since the ouster of ruler Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

Based in the capital Tripoli and currently led by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, the Government of National Accord was founded in 2015 under a UN-led agreement. But efforts for a long-term political settlement have failed due to a military offensive by militias loyal to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar.

Al-Sarraj’s internationally recognized government has been battling Haftar’s militias since April 2019 in a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.

Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara