Salame Says Push Continues Toward Ceasefire Deal in Libya

  • 2/6/2020
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The UN’s special representative for Libya, Ghassan Salame, said Thursday the country’s rivals are working to turn a provisional ceasefire into a formal agreement as they emerged from four days of talks in Geneva. Salame, who heads the United Nations support mission in Libya, said the warring sides are negotiating the remaining sticking points in a ceasefire deal. Those include the return of internally displaced people, the disarmament of armed groups and ways to monitor a truce, which each side has accused the other of violating. Salame said the ceasefire would be monitored by the military representatives in Geneva with support from the UN Mission in Libya. Another unresolved issue, he said, is how to deal with heavy weaponry, sent to Libya from several countries, despite pledges not to at last month’s Berlin Conference. “There are still two or three points of divergence,” Salame told reporters in Geneva. He said delegates will reconvene Friday to discuss the latest draft. That agreement must then be sent back to their respective leaders for approval. Libyan National Army leader Khalifa Haftar and the head of the Government of National Accord, Fayez al-Sarraj, both sent delegations of military officials to represent them at the Geneva talks. Salame said an “economic track” of the diplomatic process will resume in Cairo on Sunday and seek to address a standoff over oil production in the country. For weeks, tribes loyal to Haftar have choked off virtually all of the countrys oil exports "The (UN Libya) mission wants the oil to flow as soon as possible," he added. In a separate incident, six people, including one Libyan citizen, were killed when a pick-up truck packed with smuggled migrants crashed into a fuel tanker in the southwest, the UN migration agency said Thursday. The war has turned Libya, which sits on Africa’s Mediterranean coast, into a major conduit for Europe-bound migrants.

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