By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli/Tunis, 29 September 2015:
Delegates to the UN-brokered Libya Dialogue talks, including those from the House of Representatives (HoR) . . .[restrict]and the General National Congress, will meet in New York on Thursday and Friday, the Libya Herald has been told, although the precise nature of the event remains unclear. Last week UN Special Envoy Bernardino Leon announced that the delegates would initial the definitive Draft agreement during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Earlier todayday, though, UN officials had been saying that it was uncertain if the meeting would take place.
Now, according to one western diplomat involved in the process, there will be a meeting on Thursday to approve the definitive text of the peace plan, finally distributed only last night, then the delegates will chose names for the prime minister, the two deputy prime minsters and the other two members of the presidency council. On Friday, there will be a ceremony, in effect giving the Draft the UN’s blessing, attended by the Secretary General and a number of foreign ministers.
However, another western diplomat has said it was unlikely that a prime minister and the other ministers would be decided in New York. That would be done when the delegates reconvened at Skhirat, possibly next Sunday, he said.
Meanwhile he and other diplomats expressed fears about the Dialogue momentum being lost and of deadlines not being met. “We’re losing time. It’s going too slow,” he said.
However in what is being seen as a positive move, the HoR yesterday agreed to send its delegates back to the Dialogue, although at the time, according to an HoR spokesman, it had not seen the definitive Draft when it made the decision.
The delgates were pulled out a fortnight ago after Leon agreed to demands from the General National Congress in Tripoli that he include its amendments to the Draft agreement.
The HoR yesterday also agreed to set up a new Dialogue support committee with limited executive powers to enable decisions about the Dialogue to be made more quickly.
Nonetheless, there have been mixed messages coming out of both it and the General National Congress in Tripoli about whether they wish to continue with the Dialogue. There are strong voices in both opposed to it.
Moreover, on Sunday, speaking at the UN General Assembly, HoR President Ageela Salah Gwaider said that the Dialogue negotiations might continue past the 20 October deadline set by Leon.
The fear among those facilitating and backing the Dialogue is that if it passes the deadline, the discussions will continue interminably with no agreement being reached. [/restrict]
