The speaker of Libya’s parliament and the head of the High Council of State were invited by the UN special advisor on Libya, Stephanie Williams, on Monday to meet within ten days for talks.
Aquila Saleh, the Speaker of the east Libya-based House of Representatives, and Khaled al-Mishri, the head of the Tripoli-based High Council of State, which acts like a senate, were urged by Williams to meet to discuss the conflicting points that hinder progress in the talks of the Constitutional Track Committee.
Williams told a press conference, at the conclusion of the third and final round of talks of the Libyan Constitutional Track Committee in Egypt, that “the Joint Committee achieved a great deal of consensus on the contentious articles in the Libyan Draft Constitution.”
She added that “differences persist on the measures governing the transitional period leading to elections.”
On Saturday, though the meeting failed to take place due to differences in the agenda of the talks, the UN advisor had attempted to arrange a meeting between Saleh and al-Mishri in Cairo.
In an effort to reach a consensus on the constitutional framework to hold Libya’s long-awaited elections, Egypt hosted the third and last round of the UN-sponsored talks.
In the hope that the vote will contribute to ending years of armed conflict that have plagued the oil-rich country, Libyans are still waiting for the stalled polls to take place.
