By Moutaz Ali.
Tripoli, 19 February 2017:
Foreign ministries from three of Libya’s neighbours – Algeria, Egypt and Tunisia – met for emergency talks in Tunis this evening, to try and find a way to revive efforts to bring about peace in Libya. The efforts were delivered a major blow last week when Egyptian moves to bring about face-to-face talks between Presidency Council leader Faiez Serraj and Khalifa Hafter collapsed when Hafter refused to meet Serraj.
According to the Tunisian ministry, social media site, the three – Egyptian and Tunisian foreign ministers Khemaies Jhinaoui and Sameh Shoukry and Algerian minister for Maghreb, African and Arab League Affairs, Abdelkader Messahel – plan to continue their deliberations tomorrow, Monday.
The meeting, originally called by the Tunisian government for 1 March, was brought forward because of fears of a worsening situation in Libya as a result of collapse last week.
Prior to the talks, Messahel met yesterday with House of Representatives’s leader Ageela Saleh in Algiers to try and convince him to accept a compromise. Saleh was accused by Presidency Council head Faeiz Serraj of having deliberately sabotaged last week’s planned meeting in Cairo.
