By Libya Herald reporter.
Tripoli, 8 April 2016:
The President of the House of Representatives (HoR), Ageela Saleh, arrived in Cairo today to . . .[restrict]take part in the annual Arab Inter-Parliamentary Union conference. The two-day gathering starts on Sunday. He was accompanied by the second deputy president Ahmaid Huma and four other members of the HoR.
The fact that the conference continues all day on Monday, suggests that, contrary to reports, there will be no meeting of the HoR that day to debate the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) and the Government of National Accord (GNA).
The HoR in under intense international pressure to meet and approve both.
However, there are expected to be a series of meetings in Cairo during Saleh’s visit with other Libya stakeholders including several HoR members on the LPA and GNA.
The first HoR deputy president, Emhemed Shouaib, who supports the LPA, arrived in the Egyptian capital yesterday and he and Saleh met this evening to discuss the current impasse, including the meeting in Tripoli by the State Council despite the fact that it is not yet legal. Three days ago, Shouaib made clear that he considered the State Council meeting premature and unconstitutional because the LPA still has not been incorporated into Libyan law.
Meetings in Cairo between Saleh and Presidency Council boycotters Omar Aswad and Ali Gatrani are also thought likely.
Yesterday, a phone conversation between Saleh and prime minister-designate Faiez Serraj was described “constructive” by a presidency council official. Saleh had earlier demanded that Serraj go to the HoR in person and again propose his government; Serraj has agreed to do so although no date has been set.
On many occasions in recent months Salah attended events outside the country as a result of which the HoR did not meet to debate the new government. The EU and others believe that this was done deliberately to prevent any decision, and is one of the reasons why it decided to put him on its Libya sanctions list at the beginning of the month.
Meanwhile in Cairo, the interim Beida government’s foreign minister, Mohamed Al-Dayri has met with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister and President Putin’s envoy for the Middle East and Africa, Mikhail Bogdanov. Talks mainly focussed on the threat from the so-called Islamic State and, according to the Libyan new agency LANA, the need to speed up its “elimination”. [/restrict]
