The head of Libya’s internationally recognised government and a military strongman who backs a rival administration in the country’s east have met and agreed to hold elections, the United Nations said Thursday.
Unity government leader Fayez al-Sarraj met Khalifa Haftar on Wednesday in Abu Dhabi, where they agreed “on the need to end the transitional phase through general elections and on ways to preserve the stability of #Libya and unify its institutions,” the UN’s Libya mission UNSMIL tweeted.
Libya has been torn between rival administrations and a myriad of militias since the NATO-backed overthrow and killing of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011.
Chief among them are Sarraj’s Government of National Accord, based in Tripoli, and an administration based in the east and backed by Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army.
The leaders had agreed to a Paris-brokered deal in May 2018 to hold a nationwide election by the end of the year.
But instability, territorial disputes and divisions in the oil-rich country delayed those plans.
Source: Guardian Newspaper
