TRIPOLI: Libya’s rival factions should stick to a UN peace process and prepare for elections in spring 2018, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, trying to give stalled UN talks a new push.
The North African country has two rival governments, one in the east and a UN-backed administration in the capital Tripoli in the west, in a conflict stemming from the overthrow of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
France was a leading player in the NATO intervention against Qaddafi, sending warplanes to bomb his forces.
The UN launched a new round of talks in September in Tunis between the rival factions to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018, but they broke off after one month.
“I noted the desire from the Prime Minister (Fayez Al-Seraj) to stick to the calendar. We have a total convergence of views to implement this agenda,” Le Drian said after meeting the Tripoli-based prime minister in the Libyan capital.
Drian will later fly to the eastern city of Benghazi to meet the powerful eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar, who on Sunday called the UN-backed government and peace process obsolete.
The UN talks had stumbled over the question of what role Haftar should play. He indicated on Sunday he wants to run as presidential candidate.
Haftar remains popular among Libyans in the east who are weary of the chaos, but faces opposition in western Libya.
The eastern-based House of Representatives on Tuesday widened divisions between east and west by approving a new central bank governor. The bank’s Tripoli headquarters and UN rejected the move.
Le Drian said a political deal would help solve crisis of thousands of illegal migrants stuck in detention centers in Libya where human rights groups said they often face abuse. Libyan officials deny this but say they are overwhelmed with a flood of migrants.
Libya is to main departure point for illegal migrants heading for Europe by boat.
France urges Libya to act on UN peace plan
France urges Libya to act on UN peace plan
Russian drone attack forces power cuts in Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, military says
- Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid
KYIV: Russian drones struck infrastructure in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday, forcing emergency power blackouts for more than 45,000 customers and disrupting heat supplies, military administration head Oleksandr Vilkul said.
“Please fill up on water and charge your devices, if you have the chance. It’s going to be difficult,” Vilkul said on the Telegram messaging app.
Water utility pumping stations switched to generators and water remained in the system, but there could be pressure problems.
The full scale of the attack was not immediately known. There was no comment from Russia about the strike.
Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine’s power plants, substations and transmission lines with missiles and drones, seeking to knock out electricity and heating and hinder industry during the nearly four-year war.
Kyiv says the campaign has forced rolling outages and emergency cuts to cities across the country, as repair crews work under fire and Ukraine relies on air defenses and electricity imports to stabilize the grid.
Kryvyi Rih, a steel-and-mining hub in the Dnipropetrovsk region and President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, has been hit repeatedly, with strikes killing civilians and damaging homes and industry.
The city sits close enough to southern front lines to be within strike range, while its factories, logistics links and workforce make it economically important and a key rear-area center supporting Ukraine’s war effort.
