By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 4 December 2014:
The United Nations Support Mission in Libya has yet to announce details of the 9 December . . .[restrict]second round of negotiations overseen by its chief, Bernardino Leon. Nevertheless, leaks suggest that the composition of what he has called “Ghadames II” will be very different from the original negotiations held at the end of September.
A normally reliable source has told the Libya Herald that Leon is inviting a broad mix of participants to the next round of peace talks. This includes two serving members of the House of Representatives as well as two stand-out members. There will also, it is being said, be two former members of the General National Congress along with two members of Congress who have made themselves part of the revived rump of the old parliament.
The source has said that also invited to the negotiations are single representatives from the municipalities in Tripoli, Benghazi, Tobruk, Sebha, Misrata and Zintan, as well as three Muslim clerics, three women and three representatives of minorities. These last would presumably be from the Amazigh, Tebu and Tuareg communities .
The major omission from the information given to this newspaper is about the participation of members of the government in Beida and the Hassi antigovernment in Tripoli.
UNSMIL’s peace initiative is running in parallel with that launch by Sudan. An UMSMIL source yesterday confirmed that there was no direct link between Leon’s peace negotiations and those that are being launched by Sudan.
UNSMIL was not able to respond this evening to questions about the the leak on the talks.
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