The African Union says it is spearheading a national reconciliation conference aimed at restoring peace and stability to strife-prone Libya.
AU Commission chairperson Musa Faki Mahamat told a news conference at the end of the heads of state summit in Addis Ababa Ethiopia on Sunday that the preparatory meetings for the conference had been held inside Libya last month.
He added: “We have met with the different parties and we are in the process of working with them on a date and place for the national conference”.
The organisation has appointed Congo Republic’s President Denis Sassou Nguesso as its focal person for Libya and he will be chairing the meeting in this capacity.
Libya has been mired in more than a decade of political instability since the overthrow in a NATO-backed armed uprising of strongman Mammar Gaddafi in 2011.
Since then disparate armed militias have been battling for control of parts of the country , which has been divided between a UN-backed government based in Tripoli and a rival authority headquartered in Tobruk in the east of the country.
Presidential and legislative elections which were originally scheduled for December 2021 were cancelled due to an incomplete peace process championed by the United Nations.
The sticking points were centred around the suitability of prospective candidates and the requirements for participating.
WN/as/APA