By Libya Herald reporters.
Tripoli, 17 April 2016:
UNSMIL has relocated to Libya, its chief Martin Kobler announced at a press conference at . . .[restrict]the Presidency Council’s current Tripoli location in the Bu Sitta naval base.
“Today is not a visit. I am not visiting Tripoli anymore. I am working from Tripoli, “ he said, “the United Nations is back in Tripoli”.
Kobler continued that ambassadors to Libya currently in Tunis were telling him that they also wanted to get back to the capital as soon as security permitted. His arrival follows on the heels of a visit by the French and German foreign ministers yesterday and Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni on Tuesday. It also follows that on Thursday by the British, French and Spanish ambassadors to Tripoli.
Kobler, who arrived with his security adviser Italian General Paolo Serra, is himself expected to fly on to Tobruk tomorrow. He plans to have talks with House of Representatives’ president Ageela Saleh, ahead of parliament’s anticipated vote on the Government of National Accord and the key Article 8 to the Constitutional Declaration.
Today Kobler continued to urge the HoR to agree both. However, there are signs that prime minister-designate Faeiz Serraj may be prepared to make up to three changes in the cabinet he has presented.
The Libya Herald understands that proposed foreign minister Mohamed Taha Siala, planning minister Al-Hadi Al-Juhaimi and minister for martyrs’ families, the wounded and missing Muhanad Said Younis, may all be changed at the behest of the HoR. Siala is seen as a Qaddafist because he only abandoned the old regime in its very last days. Juhaimi, a one-time Central Bank governor, was implicated during the Qaddafi era in a wider corruption case at the bank. Younis is alleged to have laid false claim to academic qualifications.
Fathi Majberi, one of the Presidency Council’s two deputy prime ministers-designate from the east met regional mayors in Guba, near Labraq yesterday. It is understood that the presence of these three candidates on the cabinet list was a main point of discussion.
The PC might however have difficulties if it dropped Younes, who is the only Amazigh within the proposed government.
Majberi also had talks yesterday with Ageela Saleh. [/restrict]
