{"id":21692,"date":"2018-11-08T21:27:28","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T21:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21692"},"modified":"2018-11-08T21:27:28","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T21:27:28","slug":"wintry-weather-and-diplomacy-cool-down-gaza-border-protests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21692","title":{"rendered":"Wintry weather and diplomacy cool down Gaza border protests"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"129\">\n<p>\nMOSCOW:\u00a0Russia\u2019s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian media reported, signalling Kremlin support ahead of a conference aimed at settling the north African country\u2019s years of strife.<\/p>\n<p>\nRussia\u2019s military has long shown backing for the powerful Libyan commander, who dominates eastern Libya. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\nHe has visited Russia before, and last year the Russian Defense Ministry hosted him aboard its sole aircraft carrier.<\/p>\n<p>\nShoigu and Haftar discussed the Libyan crisis and the security situation in the Middle East and North Africa, Russian news agencies said, citing a defense ministry statement, without giving details.<\/p>\n<p>\nItaly will host an international conference on Libya on Monday and Tuesday, which Haftar will attend, Italy has said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\nHaftar\u2019s office said the meeting in Moscow had covered ways to end Libya\u2019s crisis and the fight against terrorism.<\/p>\n<p>\nRussia is expected to send high-level representatives to the Palermo meeting.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe international community formally backs the transitional government in Tripoli, but Egypt and the UAE have lent Haftar support and European states including France courted Haftar as his power grew.<\/p>\n<p>\nUN efforts to stabilize Libya have long been undercut by the divergent agendas of foreign powers.<\/p>\n<p>\nFrance has vied for influence with Italy, which has sought to protect its oil and gas interests and stem the flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, by building ties in Tripoli.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\nIn recent weeks, Western powers and the UN have quietly stopped talking about the election in December, without formally declaring it dead.<\/p>\n<p>\nIn May, France had persuaded major players in the North African country to verbally agree to elections on Dec. 10 as a way of ending repeated rounds of bloodshed between competing factions.<\/p>\n<p>\nBut weeks of fighting between rival militias in Tripoli and deadlock between rump parliaments in Tripoli and the east has made that goal unrealistic, Western officials argue.<\/p>\n<p>\nShelving the plans for presidential and parliamentary elections is the latest setback for Western powers.<\/p>\n<p>\nInstead of pushing for a vote as a short-term goal, UN Special Envoy Ghassan Salame was focusing in a briefing to the UN Security Council on Thursday on staging a national conference next year and fixing the economy, diplomats said.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe conference would aim to forge consensus in a country divided between hundreds of armed groups controlling mostly minimal territory, towns, tribes and regions.<\/p>\n<p>\nSalame plans to push again for economic reforms to end a system benefiting armed groups that have access to cheap dollars due to their power over banks.<\/p>\n<p>\nSalame is the sixth UN special envoy for Libya since 2011.<\/p>\n<p>\nDiplomats say delayed reforms introduced in Tripoli in September, including a fee on purchases of foreign currency, can only partially ease Libya\u2019s economic woes as long as the central bank remains divided and predatory factions retain their positions.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe reforms have so far done little to improve conditions for ordinary Libyans hit by steep inflation and a cash crisis linked to the fall of the dinar on the black market.<\/p>\n<p>\nFor the militias, the sources said Salame would outline a new \u201csecurity arrangement\u201d for Tripoli aimed at depriving them of control of key sites and integrating their members into regular forces \u2014 something that has proved elusive in the past.<\/p>\n<p>\nTalks to unify rival camps launched in September 2017, shortly after Salame took up his post, ground to a halt after one month with Haftar\u2019s role a key sticking point. Many in western Libya oppose him, fearing he could use the position to seize power.<\/p>\n<p>\nHaftar\u2019s Libyan National Army says it is committed to the election process, in which Haftar himself is a possible candidate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOSCOW:\u00a0Russia\u2019s Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar in Moscow on Wednesday, Russian media reported, signalling Kremlin support ahead of a conference aimed at settling the north African country\u2019s years of strife. Russia\u2019s military has long shown backing for the powerful Libyan commander, who dominates eastern Libya. \u00a0 He has visited Russia before,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21692","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}