By Jamie Prentis.
Tunis, 20 April 2017:
Algeria’s minister for Maghreb, Arab and African affairs, Abdelkader Messahel, was in eastern Libya today for meetings with Khalifa Hafter and House of Representatives (HoR) President Ageela Saleh.
The meeting with the HoR chief, in Beida, came first. A HoR statement said Saleh updated Messahel on the latest developments related to the Libyan Political Agreement. Also attending were Mohamed Dayri, the Beida-based interim government’s foreign minister, and Hafter’s main political advisor Abdelbasit Al-Badri, who is also the Libyan ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
Little has been disclosed released about Messahel’s discussions with Hafter which took place at the field marshal’s headquarters at Rajmah near Benina, although the Libyan National Army (LNA) has reported that they focused on anti-terrorism cooperation.
The Algerian Press Service, however, said Messahel’s trip was part of Algeria’s attempts to engineer a lasting political settlement in Libya.
Algeria hoped this would come through “the inter-Libyan inclusive dialogue and national reconciliation which preserves Libya’s territorial integrity, its sovereignty and the unity and cohesion of its people,” APS said.
The visit comes after a Messahel chaired an Algerian-Russian conference in Algiers yesterday to discuss security and counterterrorism in the region. Whilst a broad range of countries was looked at, Libya topped the agenda. Russia was represented by a member of its National Security Council, Venediktov Alexander.
