By Maha Ellawati.
Benghazi, 8 February 2013:
The President of General National Congress, Mohamed Magrief, and Prime Minister Ali Zeidan were in Benghazi . . .[restrict]today, Friday, for talks with the local council and civil society leaders on the latters’ demands for investment and the relocation of NOC to the city. The talks also focused on the security situation there amid concerns that there could be violence on 15 February.
Cyrenaica federalists have called for demonstrations that day, the second anniversary of the actual start of the revolution. There are fears that pro-Qaddafi regime supporters, Islamist militants and others opposed to the course of the revolution, including some federalists, might use the event to mount attacks and destabilise the situation even further.
Confirming today’s meeting, Benghazi city councillor Sadiq Al-Zleitni told the Libya Herald that it followed on from talks in Tripoli last Monday with Zeidan and Magarief. He said that at those talks, which he himself had attended along with Benghazi local council leader Mahmoud Abu Raziza and two other councillors, a number of demands had been put to the Prime Minister and the head of Congress. These were: investment for jobs in Benghazi, proper security there, the return of the NOC in its entirety to the city and the relocation of Libyan oil companies there.
At today’s meeting, Zeidan reportedly said that the government was determined to meet its obligations in providing security in the city despite the present difficult circumstances. For his part, Magarief dismissed the Cyrenaica federalists and their Cyrenaica Transitional Council. Congress was democratically elected and the only legitimate authority in the country, he said, and was carrying out its duties responsibly. [/restrict]
