Libyan crisis: a new round of "security track" talks in Geneva

CAIRO - 21 October 2020: The United Nations announced on Monday the launch of the fourth round of the Joint Libyan Military Committee talks (5 + 5) under its auspicesin Geneva. The committee represents the two parties of the Libyan conflict.

The United Nations said in a brief statement that the fourth round of the joint military committee talks started Monday, in the presence of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations and Acting Head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya Stephanie Williams, without giving further details regarding the duration of the meeting.

The Joint Military Committee, which emerged from an international summit held in January 2020 in Berlin, must define the conditions for a sustainable ceasefire with withdrawal from military positions.The committee's work focused on the security track, which is one of the three tracks that the mission is working on in parallel with the economic and political tracks.

The meeting began with the Libyan national anthem and the speech of Williams and the heads of the two Libyan delegations, and is scheduled to end on October 24. The United Nations did not provide any details about the statements of the participants in this closed meeting.

The statement indicates that the International Support Mission in Libya hopes that "the two delegations will solve all outstanding issues in order to reach a complete and permanent ceasefire in all parts of Libya."

The previous two-day meeting was held in September 2020 in Egypt'sHurghada, on the Red Sea.

Negotiations took place between parliamentarians earlier in the same month in Morocco, and a comprehensive agreement was announced at that time on criteria for assuming sovereign positions.

Also in September, “consultations” were held between the two parties to the Libyan conflict in Montreux, Switzerland.

It is noteworthy that in recent years many rounds of negotiations have taken place and many agreements have been announced, but they have not been implemented.