Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has expressed hope that commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Khalifa Haftar, supporting one of the Libyan governments, will partake in the international conference on Libya in Italy's Palermo, where the LNA chief could try to find common ground with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, leading the opposing UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord
PALERMO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 12th November, 2018) Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has expressed hope that commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Khalifa Haftar, supporting one of the Libyan governments, will partake in the international conference on Libya in Italy's Palermo, where the LNA chief could try to find common ground with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Sarraj, leading the opposing UN-backed Libyan Government of National Accord.
The conference kicked off in Palermo, the capital of the Italian island of Sicily, on Monday and will last through Tuesday. While earlier in fall, the commander confirmed his participation in the conference, a source in the LNA told Sputnik on Sunday that Haftar would not attend the international meeting on the Libyan settlement.
"I hope that Haftar will attend [the conference]. His vision is definitely different from that of [Fayez] Sarraj ... But this does not mean that the possibility of finding a path that would connect different points of view should be ruled out from the very beginning," Conte said in an interview with La Stampa newspaper published on Monday.
According to the Italian prime minister, Rome hopes that the Palermo conference will lead to a real breakthrough in the peace process in Libya.
"It is necessary to break the stalemate in which the Libyan political process has long been. But first of all, it is necessary to prevent the escalation of violence, of which we have had enough in recent months," Conte noted.
Violence escalated in and around the Libyan capital of Tripoli in late August, as opposing militant groups renewed clashes with each other. Shortly afterward, the United States announced that it had brokered a ceasefire agreement, however, media reported that the warring sides continued clashes in violation of the accord.
Libya has been in a state of civil conflict since 2011, when the country's long-time leader, Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown and killed. The country is currently divided between two governments, with the eastern part of Libya controlled by the parliament elected in 2014 and backed by the Libyan National Army, led by Haftar. Sarraj's government, in turn, governs Libya's western parts and is based in Tripoli.
