The chairperson of Libya's Presidential Council, Mohammad Younes Menfi, and the speaker of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, met on Thursday to discuss the recent developments in the Egyptian capital Cairo.
Presidential Council spokesperson Najwa Wahiba said in a statement that Menfi and Saleh reviewed the efforts to draft a new constitution by a joint committee between Libya's High Council of State and House of Representatives.
Wahiba also noted that the Presidential Council was close to finalizing a project for Libya's national reconciliation after years of civil conflict, an issue that was also on the agenda of the Menfi-Saleh meeting.
Early on Thursday, the head of the High Council of State, Khalid al-Mishri, said he was invited by U.N. special adviser on Libya Stephanie Williams to meet with Saleh and review conflicting points on the country's political and constitutional path.
The High Council of State, which acts as a senate and is based in the capital Tripoli, is a rival to the eastern-based parliament known as the House of Representatives.
"What is important is to see that the other partner is serious about reaching national consensus to end the transitional period in Libya," al-Mishri said.
The third and last U.N.-sponsored Libya talks kicked off in Cairo on Sunday in an effort to reach consensus on the constitutional framework to hold long-awaited elections in the North African nation.
Once again, two competing governments are vying for control in Libya, already torn by more than a decade of civil war.
Libya has for years been split between rival administrations in the east and the west, each supported by rogue militias and foreign governments. The Mediterranean nation has been in a state of upheaval since the 2011 NATO-backed uprising toppled and later killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
But a plan had emerged in the past two years that was meant to put the country on the path toward elections. A U.N.-brokered process installed an interim government in early 2021 to shepherd Libyans to elections that were due late last year.
That government, led by Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, briefly unified the political factions under heavy international pressure. But the voting never took place, and since then, the plan has unraveled and left the country in crisis.
Lawmakers in Libya's east-based parliament, headed by influential speaker Saleh, argued that Dbeibah’s mandate ended when the interim government failed to hold elections.
They chose Fathi Bashagha, an influential former interior minister from the western city of Misrata, as the new prime minister. Their position gained the endorsement of putschist Gen.Khalifa Haftar whose forces control the country's east and most of the south, including major oil facilities.
Dbeibah has refused to step down, and factions allied with him in western Libya deeply oppose Haftar. They maintain that Dbeibah, who is also from Misrata with ties to its powerful militias, is working toward holding elections.
