{"id":22156,"date":"2018-11-16T23:23:22","date_gmt":"2018-11-16T23:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22156"},"modified":"2018-11-16T23:23:22","modified_gmt":"2018-11-16T23:23:22","slug":"italys-libya-talks-lay-bare-deep-divisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=22156","title":{"rendered":"Italy\u2019s Libya talks lay bare deep divisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTRIPOLI: Italy\u2019s Libya talks this week laid bare deep divisions between the key power brokers, threatening attempts to resolve the country\u2019s ongoing crisis, analysts say.<\/p>\n

\nTwo days of meetings in the Sicilian capital Palermo saw some delegates refuse to sit side by side, while a meeting held on the sidelines sparked a diplomatic spat.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe dynamics between the four Libyan delegations attending the Palermo conference regrettably show that the rifts are still very deep,\u201d said Claudia Gazzini, a Libya analyst at International Crisis Group.<\/p>\n

\nLibyan strongman Khalifa Haftar showed up, only to snub the main conference and organize separate talks with international leaders.<\/p>\n

\nSuch a move was \u201ca slap in the face to the Libyan politicians at the conference,\u201d said Gazzini.<\/p>\n

\nHaftar, whose self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) holds much of eastern Libya, held a meeting with representatives of Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, France and Russia.<\/p>\n

\nOne of his main rivals, UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj, also attended the \u201cinformal talks,\u201d but Qatar and Turkey were not invited.<\/p>\n

\nTheir exclusion prompted Ankara to pull out of the main conference in protest.<\/p>\n

\nLNA spokesman Ahmed Al-Mesmari later accused Turkey and Qatar of traveling to Palermo \u201cto protect the interests of the terrorist groups which they are supporting in Libya.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nFragility<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nKhaled Saleh El-Kuafi, a professor at the University of Benghazi, said the outcome \u201cillustrated the extent of the crisis, the divisions in Libya and the fragility of the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHaftar \u201csucceeded in being the star of the conference\u201d by refusing to meet some of his rivals and sidelining Turkey and Qatar,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\nThe Palermo talks followed a Paris meeting at which Libyan leaders agreed to prepare for elections this December. Such a timeline was widely viewed as unrealistic, however, and preparations for polls have now been pushed back to 2019.<\/p>\n

\nFor Khaled Al-Montasser, a professor at the University of Tripoli, international meetings cannot succeed \u201cwhile the international parties are putting the Libyans under pressure and while they put forward solutions to the crisis which suit themselves and them alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nIt should be up to the Libyans, he said, to \u201cagree on the subjects that they must discuss.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nBut, as Montasser noted, the Libyan leaders themselves are \u201cnot ready to accept each other and to tolerate differences of opinion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nJust as in May, the top Libyan invitees to Palermo were Haftar, Al-Sarraj, who heads the Government of National Accord in Tripoli, the eastern parliament\u2019s speaker Aguila Salah and Khaled Al-Mechri, speaker of a Tripoli-based upper chamber.<\/p>\n

\nBut the Italy talks were not really focused on improving relations between the rivals, according to Libyan analyst Emad Badi.<\/p>\n

\nIt was instead \u201can attempt by Italy to both react to the French initiative and to reposition itself as a power broker,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\nDespite the conference being viewed as a failure by numerous analysts, some have underlined the importance of meetings organized by the UN a few hours before the formal talks opened.<\/p>\n

\nThose discussions focused on economic and security issues in Libya, where residents have seen their currency\u2019s value plummet and endured years of violence.<\/p>\n

\nWeeks of clashes in September between rival militias in the capital Tripoli killed at least 117 people and wounded more than 400, prompting Al-Sarraj\u2019s government to introduce reforms.<\/p>\n

\nThe UN\u2019s Libya envoy, Ghassan Salame, this week welcomed the participants\u2019 backing for the new measures and their \u201cunanimous support\u201d for a national conference early next year.<\/p>\n

\nThe 2019 talks are intended to give Libyans a chance to spell out their vision for the future, with elections slated for a few months later.<\/p>\n

\nHowever, \u201cnumerous Libyans are still not certain of the format and aims of that conference,\u201d said Crisis Group\u2019s Gazzini.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TRIPOLI: Italy\u2019s Libya talks this week laid bare deep divisions between the key power brokers, threatening attempts to resolve the country\u2019s ongoing crisis, analysts say. Two days of meetings in the Sicilian capital Palermo saw some delegates refuse to sit side by side, while a meeting held on the sidelines sparked a diplomatic spat. \u201cThe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":22157,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22156","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\/22156","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=22156"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22156\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}