United Nations envoy to Libya Ghassan Salamé renewed his call for amending the ‘Skhirat Agreement’ after a stalemate following the political parties' meeting in Tunis on October 21 in an attempt to revive the agreement.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Abdullah Balik told Asharq Al-Awsat that the move was “an attempt to bring the views closer before the elections.”
Salamé met with the Libya’s eastern-based House of Representatives (HoR) and the Tripoli-based Higher Council of State (HCS) to agree on a mechanism for selecting a new presidential council.
"The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, Ghassan Salamé, met with the heads of the HoR and HSC Dialogue Committees, AbdelSalam Nasiyeh and Musa Farraj at the UN compound in Tripoli," the Mission tweeted earlier.
"He received an update on the two Councils efforts to reconcile their views and proceed in harmony," the Mission added.
The meeting discussed the need for the two Councils to agree on the mechanism of choosing the new presidential council and forming a unified executive authority.
"The political process in Libya is frozen and threatened by failure because of the differences of political parties," said a House of Representatives for the eastern city of Benghazi member Abu Bakir Baaira.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat he explained that the UN envoy was trying to "reach out to scattered political parties."
He added that “holding parliamentary and presidential elections in Libya this year is not easy.”
Given rising difficulties, Baaira said that it drove Salamé to search for a post-agreement recovery phase.
Salamé made his remarks during a meeting with Heads of the Dialogue Committees of both parties in the capital Tripoli.
In November 2017, the Higher Council of State rejected a proposal by the United Nations to amend the political agreement, threatening to hold early elections within six months.
