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By Libya Herald staff.
Tunis, 16 September 2015:
Two members of the UN-brokered Libya Dialogue negotiations have announced they are now boycotting proceedings. . . .[restrict]They accuse UN Special Envoy Bernardino Leon of appeasing the General National Congress (GNC) by agreeing to all its demands for amendments to the Draft accord. It was approved in July by all the participants other then the GNC team.
In a letter to him and to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Tawfiq Shuhabi and Sharif Al-Wafi, both former members of the GNC, specifically said that the proposed Draft amendment allowing the current members of the GNC to join the State Council, rather than those elected in 2012, was unacceptable.
Those like themselves who had accepted democracy and withdrawn from the GNC when the House of Representatives (HoR) was elected were being ignored while those who rejected the peaceful transmission of power and resorted to arms to retain it were being rewarded by Leon, they said.
Calling on him to delay any decision on the size and composition of the council, they said that they would continue their boycott of the Dialogue until there was full discussion of the matter.
The boycott follows the decision by the HoR to reject Leon’s amendments to the Draft and call their delegates back to Tobruk.
Meanwhile, Leon has expressed confidence that a formula would be found to meet both sides’ positions, stating that the talks would continue and that such diversity of views was perfectly normal. There was still a lack of trust between the parties, but the gap between them was not big, he insisted.
He also indicted there could be further changes to the draft. [/restrict]
