Media reported that Morocco is currently hosting a round of negotiations between the Libyan factions to discuss a settlement to the country’s armed conflict.
The reports indicated that negotiations are underway between two delegations from the Libyan High Council of State and the Parliament.
Anadolu Agency quoted an official from the High Council of State as saying that meetings are taking place in Morocco and other unspecified places, between committees representing Tripoli-based Government of National Accord and the Tobruk Parliament, regarding a number of files related to the crisis.
The official indicated that, in the future, after the committees finish their work, Morocco may host a meeting between the President of the High Council of State, Khaled Al-Mishri, and the Speaker of Parliament, Ageela Saleh.
Al-Arabiya TV reported that Libyan-Libyan negotiations are expected to start tomorrow in the Moroccan capital, Rabat, and not in the Conference Palace in Skhirat which hosted the previous talks in 2015. The meeting is expected to be at the experts’ level.
On Friday Al-Mishri confirmed that there is an “informal consultative meeting” in Morocco between the High Council of State and the Parliament. “This always happens, even between members of the State Council and Parliament members in Tripoli, and the number sometimes reaches 40 or 50 members,” he said.
The spokesperson for the Libyan Parliament, Abdullah Belhaq, recently stated in a press statement that the aim of the meeting in Morocco is “to resume dialogue between the concerned Libyan parties in order to reach a political settlement that ends the conflicts in this country,” according to the Moroccan website Hespress.
The meeting comes after Al-Mishri announced in last August his readiness to meet Saleh “openly and with international guarantees” in Morocco while negotiations between the Libyan parties are expected to resume in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations.
Meanwhile, 24 members of the High Council of State issued a statement expressing their rejection and condemnation of what they considered to be an attempt to “limit the High Council to its Chairman Al-Mishri and a few agents or advisors.”
“The individuals who are alone in assigning a committee to represent the High Council in the Morocco meeting with the Parliamentary committee are violating the bylaw that organises the Council’s work, and it is a procedure that cannot be accepted, as the Chairman does not represent the High Council, and we absolutely reject it,” the statement added.