A top adviser to the head of Libya’s U.N.-recognized government based in Tripoli has tweeted that the country’s rival leaders reached consensus on Tuesday at a Paris meeting to hold both parliamentary and presidential elections in battered Libya on Dec. 10.
The information could not be immediately confirmed.
Final decisions agreed to by four leading Libyan officials who symbolize the divisions in the North African country will be announced at the close of the conference, attended by representatives of some 20 countries and the U.N. special envoy for Libya.
The rivals had come together for the Paris meeting to try and forge a political roadmap that would help restore order in the country, where lawlessness has fed Islamic militants, human trafficking and instability in the wider region. Moving toward parliamentary and presidential election, if possible by the end of 2018, was also a key goal.
Earlier Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron’s office said Libyan leaders have agreed in principle to a non-binding accord.
“There will be a collective commitment to this scenario for coming out of the crisis,” an official at the French presidency said Monday. “The very important issue is about simplifying the Libyan institutions” because they are “extremely complex.” The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details publicly ahead of the conference.
Libya is split between rival governments in the east and west, each backed by an array of militias.
Participants at the Paris meeting included Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, head of Libya’s UN-recognized government in Tripoli in the west, and Gen. Khalifa Hifter, the commander of Libya’s national army, which dominates the east.
France is trying to play peacemaker in a country where years of efforts by the United Nations and former colonial power Italy have failed to bring stability.
Macron brought the two rival Libyan leaders — Sarraj and Hifter — for a meeting near Paris last July when they committed to work toward presidential and parliamentary elections.
Libya plunged into chaos after the uprising that ended dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s rule in 2011. France was at the forefront of the airstrikes, carried out along with the United States and others, in a NATO operation that helped rebel fighters topple Gadhafi’s regime.
The country has become a base for the Islamic State group and other extremists and a departure point for African migrants seeking to enter Europe.
