The unified committee entrusted with amending the Skhirat Agreement met with representatives of Libya’s various political parties on Saturday, for the fifth consecutive day, in the presence of UN Envoy Ghassan Salame.
While no concrete results were reached to amend the agreement signed in 2015, the committee discussed the structure and authorities of the presidential council and the cabinet, as well as the mechanism to choose the members of the council.
According to Libyan sources, which participated in the political dialogue sessions, the committee has avoided to suggest names to fill State institutions posts, in order to prevent disagreements that might hamper the progress of the talks in a positive atmosphere.
Since the launch of talks in the Tunisian capital last week, the unified committee, which is formed of 16 members representing Libyan Parliament and the High State Council, has failed to agree on the authorities of the presidential council and the mechanism to give confidence to the cabinet.
In this regard, many observers talked about the existence of several obstacles to the intra-Libyan dialogue, noting that reaching concrete solutions required “common concessions for a unified Libya”.
The Libyan political dialogue meetings in Tunis are aimed at putting an end to the transitional phase in the country by holding presidential and parliamentary elections next spring.
The proposed amendments to the Skhirat Agreement include five main points, the most important of which is Article 8, which specifies the powers of the supreme commander of the Libyan armed forces.
During the closed-door dialogue sessions, participants also discussed the African Union peace plan that was issued during the recent meeting in Brazzaville, and the Libyan parties considered that relying on an African Union peacekeeping force in the first stage to secure the basic pillars for restoring stability in Libya might be one of the solutions to overcome political instability at the end of the transitional period.
