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Libya Talks Make Progress towards New Temporary Government, UN Says

This handout picture distributed by the United Nations Office at Geneva shows Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Political Affairs in Libya Stephanie Williams.
This handout picture distributed by the United Nations Office at Geneva shows Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Political Affairs in Libya Stephanie Williams.
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Libya Talks Make Progress towards New Temporary Government, UN Says

This handout picture distributed by the United Nations Office at Geneva shows Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Political Affairs in Libya Stephanie Williams.
This handout picture distributed by the United Nations Office at Geneva shows Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Political Affairs in Libya Stephanie Williams.

A Libyan political dialogue arranged by the United Nations has made progress towards agreeing a new transitional government to oversee the run-up to elections in December, the UN said on Saturday.

Participants at talks in Geneva agreed on a mechanism for choosing the new government, whose formation has been the subject of wrangling among the main factions in a country that is a major oil producer.

Acting UN Libya envoy Stephanie Williams said the agreement represented the "best possible compromise" on the issue and could lead to the selection of a transitional government "in several weeks".

However, she also warned that there would still be "people seeking to obstruct" peacemaking efforts.

The talks are part of a wider peace process, after years of chaos and warfare, which also involves a military ceasefire and an economic track.

Libya has been split since 2014 between rival factions in Tripoli, in the west, and Benghazi in the east.

In November, the United Nations invited 75 Libyans to join a political dialogue in Tunis, which set a date of Dec. 24 this year for presidential and parliamentary elections and agreed on the need for a new, unified transitional government.

The transitional government will be responsible for preparing for the elections, combating corruption and restoring public services across Libya, Williams said.

However, November's Tunis meeting stalled when the delegates started discussing the make-up of the new government. Saturday's agreement was made by a smaller committee drawn from the participants.

All 75 members of the dialogue will vote next week on the mechanism the Geneva committee agreed on Saturday.

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Pro-Türkiye Syria Groups Reduce Presence in Kurdish Area, Says Official

US-backed Kurdish fighters stand on their vehicles, as they withdraw from two neighborhoods in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as part of a deal with the Syrian central government, in Aleppo, Syria, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP)
US-backed Kurdish fighters stand on their vehicles, as they withdraw from two neighborhoods in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as part of a deal with the Syrian central government, in Aleppo, Syria, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP)
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Pro-Türkiye Syria Groups Reduce Presence in Kurdish Area, Says Official

US-backed Kurdish fighters stand on their vehicles, as they withdraw from two neighborhoods in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as part of a deal with the Syrian central government, in Aleppo, Syria, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP)
US-backed Kurdish fighters stand on their vehicles, as they withdraw from two neighborhoods in Syria's northern city of Aleppo as part of a deal with the Syrian central government, in Aleppo, Syria, Friday, April 4, 2025. (AP)

Pro-Türkiye Syrian groups have scaled down their military presence in an historically Kurdish-majority area of the country's north which they have controlled since 2018, a Syrian defense ministry official said on Tuesday.

The move follows an agreement signed last month between Syria's new authorities and Kurdish officials that provides for the return of displaced Kurds, including tens of thousands who fled the Afrin region in 2018.

The pro-Ankara groups have "reduced their military presence and checkpoints" in Afrin, in Aleppo province, the official told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Their presence has been "maintained in the region for now", said the official, adding that authorities wanted to station them in army posts but these had been a regular target of Israeli strikes.

After opposition forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in December, the new authorities announced the disbanding of all armed groups and their integration into the new army, a move that should include pro-Türkiye groups who control swathes of northern Syria.

Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies carried out an offensive from January to March 2018 targeting Kurdish fighters in the Afrin area.

The United Nations has estimated that half of the enclave's 320,000 inhabitants fled during the offensive.

Last month, the Kurdish administration that controls swathes of northern and northeastern Syria struck a deal to integrate its civil and military institutions into those of the central government.

Syria's new leadership has been seeking to unify the country since the December overthrow of Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.

This month, Kurdish fighters withdrew from two neighborhoods of Aleppo as part of the deal.

Syrian Kurdish official Bedran Kurd said on X that the Aleppo city agreement "represents the first phase of a broader plan aimed at ensuring the safe return of the people of Afrin".

The autonomous Kurdish-led administration's military force, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, played a key role in the recapture of the last territory held by the ISIS group in Syria in 2019.