UN-led Libya Talks End Without Transitional Gov’t Agreement

A week of UN-brokered talks between the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA) has ended in Tunis without reaching consensus on who will lead a transitional government. The talks ended late on Sunday. The 75-member forum, made up of officials from both warring factions, did agree during the talks to hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Dec. 24, 2021, which is Libyan Independence Day, Stephanie Williams, the head of the UN mission to Libya, announced on Friday. The two warring factions last month signed a temporary cease-fire, paving the way for the negotiations. They agreed to meet again within a week, via videoconference, to work to agree on the makeup of a transitional government. The 75 delegates to the talks, which began on Nov. 9, were selected by the UN to represent different regions of Libya. While the GNA, Libya’s official governing body recognized by the UN, holds most of the war-torn country’s territories, including the capital of Tripoli, the LNA, led by renegade general Khalifa Haftar and propped up by Russian, Egyptian and Emirati money and mercenaries, controls the eastern border and the important city of Sirte.