UN asks Libyan factions to agree on unity government

The United Nations special envoy to Libya today called on the country's warring parties to agree on a national unity government by the end of August and endorse it with a vote in September as peace talks between rival factions resumed here.
"We are proposing the parties to work in the coming three weeks and to try and have agreement on these two points: on the annexes, and the unity government by the end of August," Bernardino Leon, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Libya and head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), said.
"If this was possible and this will very much depend on the political will and on the creativity, on the wisdom of the parties to bring good names, good proposals on the table, so if this was possible, then the endorsement and final voting and signing of the agreement could happen in the first weeks of September so that final conclusion of this process can be achieved before we have the UN General Assembly," he said.

Leon urged the General National Congress (GNC) and all Libyan political parties "to give the process benefit of the doubt".
"There are two possible extreme positions. One, is to have the text initialed by all participants and the other extreme position is 'let us reopen the text, let us introduce changes in that text'. We have to be pragmatic.
"We can be pragmatic trying to overcome these two proposals, these two positions and go directly and work on the annexes and work on the government," the UN official said.

Libya, which plunged into chaos after the fall of Muammer Gaddafi in 2011, currently has two rival parliaments vying for power as well several militia groups battling for control of the country's vast resource wealth.

The UN-brokered peace talks has been divided into different tracks like the Skhirat track with member of parliaments and representatives from civil societies, the Algiers track with political parties and leaders, the security track with the militias, the tribal tracks, the women's group track but 'these tracks were intended to converge".
"On the one hand we are starting a new round of talks with a very clear agenda, this will be on the one hand, the annexes and on the other hand, the unity government.
"And on the other hand, we are staring these convergence of tracks by bringing the political parties and in the coming days we intend to do the same with other tracks," the special envoy said.

This round of talks is expected on go on for the next two days.