EU leaders push Libya’s warring factions over peace deal

1105

European powers on Wednesday urged Libya’s warring factions to accept a peace deal within days, warning them that without an accord the only winners would be Islamist militants who have used the country’s chaos to gain ground.

Delegations from Libya’s two rival governments, who are battling for control of the OPEC state, met with European leaders in Berlin to discuss a U.N.-sponsored peace and power-sharing proposal despite splits among some of the parties.

The talks were the latest push by the international community to get Libya’s rival factions to end a crisis that threatens to turn the North African country into a failed state just across the Mediterranean sea from Europe.
“If there is no deal in the next days or weeks, no one at the negotiating table will be a winner. The winners will be other radical groups, ISIS above all,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin, referring to one of the names for Islamic State. “We have to be clear, and we told this to the parties in this conflict today, that we have an opportunity, but there won’t be many more. Perhaps this is the last chance to prevent Libya from complete collapse.”

Four years after an uprising ousted Muammar Gaddafi, Libya has descended into internecine fighting among brigades of former rebels who once battled side by side to remove the strongman but slowly turned against one another in a battle for control.

In the power vacuum, Islamist militants allied with Islamic State in Iraq and Syria have steadily gained ground, attacking fighters from both factions, taking over several towns and advancing close to oil installations.

A U.N. envoy has been negotiating for months to get an internationally recognised government and its parliament into a deal with a self-styled government set up in Tripoli since a force known as Libya Dawn took over the capital last summer.

The conflict has also cut into Libya’s oil production and exports, and the vital energy revenue they provide, with several major ports closed by fighting. “Libya has no more time. This is my first message,” U.N. envoy Bernardino Leon said. “Every day, every hour is important.”

Delegations are due to return to Morocco for another round of talks after receiving the proposed agreement. It sees the selection of a new prime minister, with the current elected House of Representatives legislating alongside a second chamber that will compromise of some members of Tripoli’s parliament.

Steinmeier said the atmosphere in the negotiations was “very encouraging”.

But implementing any peace deal, ceasefire and united government will be tricky in Libya, where some hardliners still believe they can win on the battlefield. The country’s political divisions have hardened as each side claims the mantle of the revolution against Gaddafi.

Tripoli’s self-declared government and its parliament, known as the GNC, have accepted the U.N. proposal. But divisions have emerged in the camp of the internationally-recognised government’s parliament, where some rejected the deal and boycotted the Berlin talks.