The Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Libya, Bernardino Leon, spoke to the media after a meeting with the House of Representatives' members and its president in Tobruk today (Monday):
We have just finished fruitful exchange of views in order to discuss the agenda of the political process that was agreed in Ghadames.
We have listened to the views of members of the delegation and we will now continue our consultations in two different layers.
On the one hand, we are now traveling to Tripoli where we will meet other actors, to continue to listen and to continue to consult on this agenda of the political process and on the other hand the members of the delegation we have met today will continue their consultations with other members of Parliament to work with the same cause.
We all agree on the basic principles for this dialogue, legitimacy, legitimacy as it has been reiterated by the international community which of course has to come with inclusiveness, respect for the democratic principles, respect for the constitutional declaration and rejection of terrorism.
The principles and the political momentum that was created after the Ghadames meeting is still alive. We will continue to work to make efficiently implemented the ceasefire that was called in Ghadames. But the international community have seen that this ceasefire is not yet effective. We would like to see it on the ground because Libya need this ceasefire to make this political process successful. So we will continue to work on creating the conditions for this ceasefire which is so important for the country.
And we will also continue to work on the agenda of this political process. We hope that it will be possible to reach common understanding on what this agenda should be in order to convene new rounds of talks in the future. Now I will be glad to answer your questions.
Of course, I reiterated that the basic principles of this dialogue remain the same. This is a dialogue among members of the House of Representatives, so the same groups that agreed to start this political process of Ghadames, this is two delegations - 12 representatives from each side - should continue to meet in the future. We have not proposed any change to what has been agreed so far.
Well, the call for the ceasefire it is something that both delegations agreed in Ghedames.
So for the moment I don't have any reason to think that these two delegations are not agreeing very clearly on the ceasefire. I think both understand very well what you said, that is to create conditions for this dialogue to be successful there should be a ceasefire. both delegations equally said in Ghadames that they cannot implement it in an automatic way given the situation the country has today with actors on the ground.
This is why this was a call for a ceasefire. So I think both delegations are committed to this call. They would like to see the ceasefire being implemented, and we have proposals from both delegations for the international community and the United Nations to reinforce the ceasefire to the extent possible.
(Source: UNSMIL)
