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By Ajnadin Mustafa.
Tripoli, 3 July 2016:
The Mauritanian government has invited Faiez Serraj, as head of the Presidency Council, to the 27th Arab summit to be held in Nouakchott on 25 and 26 July.
Invitations always come from the host country but are never made without the approval of the Arab League.
As such, the invitation represents formal recognition of the Presidency Council by the League and all member states, even though some members are cooperating with forces in Libya opposed to it.
Libya was represented by General National Congress president Nuri Abu Sahmain at the 2014 Arab Summit in Kuwait and by Ageela Saleh, president of the House of Representatives, at the 2015 summit in Sharm el-Sheikh.
Libya is again expected to be a major topic at the 2016 summit.
It was supposed to have taken place in Marrakech in April, but the Moroccan government decided not to host it last February, claiming it a waste of time because there were too may divisions the Arab world. Mauritania then stepped in with its offer to host it.
The Arab League has, in fact, recognised the Presidency Council almost from the moment it was announced last year. It was one of the signatories to the Rome Declaration last December which endorsed the Presidency and said that there would be no dealing with any Libyan bodies not under its authority.
Although this will be Serraj’s first time representing Libya at an Arab Summit, he has dine so at a number of other such events, notably the extraordinary Islamic summit in Jakarta in March, the formal Islamic Summit in Istanbul in April and the World Humanitarian Summit in May, also in Istanbul.
