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Libyan unity gov't to be proposed Thursday: UN envoy

Xinhua, October 8, 2015 Adjust font size:

The head of the UN Support Mission to Libya (UNSMIL), Bernardino Leon, has said that UNSMIL will propose a list of candidates for a Libyan unity government later Thursday.

The announcement, made early Thursday, came after the General National Congress (GNC) in Tripoli failed to propose names for the unity government, as was expected Wednesday.

"We will be able to propose a government," Leon told a press conference in the Moroccan city of Skhirat. "This government and this agreement will be supported by a huge majority of the Libyans all over the country, including of course Tripoli."

He insisted that the latest text of the UN brokered agreement is "final" and "not going to change."

Groups belonging to the GNC have demanded further changes to the text.

According to UNSMIL, the two main parties in Libya's political dialogue, GNC and Libya's internationally recognized House of Representatives (HoR), are expected to agree on five names for the Presidential Council by the end of this week.

On Monday, Leon resumed his talks with the Libyan warring parties, two weeks after the talks were adjourned for the Muslim feast of Eid al-Adha.

At the closing of the last round of talks, he insisted that the final deadline for signing of the agreement not go beyond Oct. 20, when the mandate of the HoR expires.

The UN-brokered Libyan political agreement was initiated in July by the Tobruk-based HoR alongside representatives of political parties, municipalities and civil society groups, but the GNC did not join the accord.

UNSMIL has sponsored several rounds of political dialogues between the country's political rivals for months in order to end the country's ongoing crisis.

Libya, a major oil producer in North Africa, has been witnessing a frayed political process after former leader Muammar Gaddafi was toppled during the 2011 political turmoil.

The country is now deadlocked in a dogfight between the pro-secular army and Islamist militants, which has led to a security vacuum for homegrown extremism to brew. Endit