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By Libya Herald reporter.
Tunis, 2 May 2015:
The Libyan embassy in Washington DC has announced that it has terminated its public relations . . .[restrict](PR) contract with Qorvis (MLS Group).
The PR contract, signed in March and disclosed at the end of April, was to provide public relations and political consultancy for the Libyan parliament (House of Representatives) and the Libyan government.
Libya’s official state news agency, LANA, quoted media sources as saying that the reason for the termination of the contract was the fact that Qorvis also signed a contract to represent Qatar’s Al-Jazeera satellite TV.
Qatar is accused by the internationally recognised Libyan government of being the prime supporter of the GNC/Libya Dawn Islamist coalition that had taken over Tripoli after a military invasion in the summer of 2014 forced the elected parliament and government to flee to the east of the country.
However, reliable sources in Washington DC have informed Libya Herald that the Qorvis contract was terminated after an ‘’evaluation of their performance’’, adding that ‘’the Libyan case was a very complicated one for many PR companies to deal with’’.
The source also rubbished claims that the embassy was pressured for various reasons into terminating the contract. “This is not true”, the source added. The source made it clear that the PR company had been hired by the embassy upon instructions from the Libyan Foreign Ministry.
The contract was signed “to help the embassy in the clarification of the complexity of the political stand of the United States on Libya”, the Washington source explained.
The source also pointed out the fact that “the Libyan embassy used to have two PR companies in [Washington] DC, which is often very essential for embassies to do in DC”. [/restrict]
