There is a "good possibility"
that a National Conference on Libya, the first step of a
UN-backed roadmap for a renewed international effort to break a
political stalemate in the country, will be held in January,
diplomatic sources said Tuesday after a meeting in Palermo
between Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte, Libyan Premier Fayez al
Sarraj and Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose Libyan National Army
controls much of the east of the country.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the conference for
Libya in Sicily, which was also attended by Russian Premier
Dmitri Medvedev, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi,
Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi, EU Council President
Donald Tusk, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian,
Algerian Premier Ahmed Ouyahia and UN envoy for Libya Ghassan
Salamè.
A photo taken after the meeting showed Conte, Sarraj and
Haftar shaking hands at Palermo's Villa Igiea.
Security and human rights were at the center of the meeting
Tuesday morning, diplomatic sources explained.
Libya's stability, the same sources stressed, is key for
Libya as well as for Italy, due to the risk of terrorists
infiltrating the country through migrant routes.
Speaking to a Libyan network in Palermo, Haftar said that "we
are still at war and the country needs to control its borders".
"We have borders with Tunisia, Algeria, Niger, Chad, Sudan
and Egypt and illegal migration comes from all sides", Haftar
added in the interview to 'Libya Hadath', stressing that the
phenomenon makes it easier for militants and Islamic terrorists
to cross into the country.
Meanwhile, according to diplomatic sources who attended the
meeting between Haftar and the head of the internationally
recognized Libyan government Sarraj, the strongman of Cyrenaica
reportedly said that "you don't change a horse while crossing a
river".
He was reportedly referring to the fact that Sarraj can lead
the government until elections are held in the country, the same
sources said.
Libyan television Al Hadath later tweeted that Haftar left
Palermo at the end of the meeting of leaders in Palermo, which
took place on the sidelines of the conference on Libya, and
"lasted over two hours", Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail
Bogdanov was quoted as saying by Tass news agency.
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