Libyan army factions to meet in Cairo Sunday

CAIRO – 18 March 2018: Chief of staffof the General Command of the Libyan National Army Abdel Razek Nadori and Chief of General Staff of the Libyan Army Abdul Rahman al-Tawil arrived in Cairo on Sunday to participate in the sixth round of negotiations to unify the Libyan military under Egyptian auspices.

The Libyan military reaffirmed that specialized technical committees have been formed to set a new start point to unify Libya’s military institutions.

In the same context, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sameh Shoukry said during a press conference held on Sunday with his UAE counterpart Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan that Egypt exerts effort to unify Libya’s National Army. He also expressed Egypt’s support to hold presidential election in Libya and endorse political consensus for Libyan people’s interests.

The anti-government protest in 2011 that toppled former President Muammar Gaddafi left the country divided between three governments; the internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, the interim Libyan government led by Abdullah al-Thani and the National Salvation Government led by Khalifa al-Ghawil.

The political division has split up the Libyan military, where some military individuals joined the army’s wing led by Khalifa Haftar.

Egypt has hosted several meetings to bring the Libyan conflicted factions to negotiations table, alongside members of Tobruk’s House of Representatives to resolve the Libyan crisis and amend the Skhirat agreement, which aims at ending Libya’s civil war.

In December 2016, Cairo hosted a conference attended by Libyan officials and representatives from the country’s numerous factions, where they issued five proposed amendments to the agreement. The conference concluded with a decision to amend the eighth article of the Skhirat agreement that outlined the jurisdiction of the Libyan army chief commander.

Negotiations to unify the Libyan military were held as a part of Egypt’s initiative that kicked off in July 2017 to unify the military institutions. The first meeting aimed at creating a framework for the initiative while the second and third meetings were held in Cairo from October 29 to November 2, 2017, to follow up the results of the first meeting. The fourth meeting was held from December 6 to 9 to restructure the Libyan army.

Egyptian Officials met again with Libyan military forces in Cairo on February 21 in order to continue the discussions that started on February 16.


The meetings deeply discussed the methods to unify and restructure the Libyan military forces after a long split that was led to by the outbreak of the Libyan revolution in 2011.