Libya civil war ceasefire talks in Russia fall apart

Bloomberg

Talks to end Libya’s civil war broke down after the commander leading the assault on the capital, Tripoli, rejected a proposed truce agreement, throwing open the door to a possible renewal of fighting and deeper foreign intervention.
It wasn’t clear what military leader Khalifa Haftar objected to, but his rival, Libya’s United Nations-recognised prime minister Fayez al-Sarraj, had demanded that he retreat to lines his forces held before the offensive on Tripoli began nine months ago.
Sarraj had signed the accord, but Haftar asked for more time to consider the agreement, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov had said.
The collapse of talks, which took place as a temporary ceasefire was shakily holding around Tripoli, was the latest in a long list of failed attempts to secure agreement between the country’s warring parties.
That may help to explain the lack of an impact on oil markets, even though Libya holds Africa’s largest proven crude reserves.
Russia and Turkey, which had assumed increasingly assertive roles in the Libyan conflict as they jockey for influence in the Mediterranean, had brought Libya’s feuding leaders to the talks after concluding the intervention was too costly.
There has been no immediate signal from Russia that it would withdraw support from Haftar following his rejection of the proposed ceasefire. Speaking in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, Lavrov said Moscow and Ankara “will continue our efforts” to secure an agreement.
Russia and Turkey pushed the fighting parties to accept the ceasefire as Libya endured its worst violence since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, which ushered
in years of instability that divided the country between rival administrations.
Haftar is a former Qaddafi-era military officer who later fell out with the autocratic leader and went into exile in the US.
He returned to Libya after the start of the uprising and in 2014 launched a military campaign with the declared aim of routing extremists in the country’s east.
Russian government adviser Vitaly Naumkin said Haftar’s rejection of the deal “is not a total collapse.” Both sides are interested in going to an international conference on Libya on Sunday “with as strong a position as possible,” state news service RIA Novosti cited him as saying.
The meeting in Berlin was meant to secure an agreement to stop foreign powers from intervening in the conflict, and Putin briefed German leader Angela Merkel, according to a statement from the Kremlin.
Libya is a gateway for migrants destined for Europe, so the European Union is desperate for a settlement to help ease political tensions across the bloc over rising anti-immigrant sentiment.
The UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, had warned ahead of the talks that “some people are still dreaming” of a military solution to the conflict.