By Ahmed Elumami.
Tripoli, 20 March 2014:
The General National Congress (GNC) is divided over talking to the self-proclaimed . . .[restrict]government of Cyrenaica about ending the blockade of the oil export terminals.
According to the Congress spokesperson Omar Hemidan, a number of members insisted that because the Cyrenaican government was illegitimate they could not talk to it. Others, he told the Libya Herald, took the pragmatic view that talks had to be held in the interests of the country. No decision, however, had been made by the Presidency of the Congress as yet, he said.
Earlier, following the failure of the Cyrenaicans’ attempts to sell oil on the international market with the capture of the Morning Glory oil tanker by the Americans, Cyrenaican “Prime Minister” Abdaraba Abdulhamid Al-Barasi had said that the federal movement was now ready to hold talks with the Congress and the government in Tripoli to end the oil terminals crisis.
However, as a precondition, Congress had to withdraw Decision No. 42 which ordered force to be used to free the oil terminals. In addition, he instead that the Misrata-based Central Libya Shield forces had to pull out of Sirte.
An agreement appears to be being hammered out.
“Generally, talks have not stopped with the federal movement from the beginning of the oil ports blockade,” Congresswoman and member of Oil and Energy Committee Fawzia Karawan told this paper. A Congressional delegation has held talks with Cyrenaica recently, she divulged, but no report had been submitted to the Congress as yet. [/restrict]
