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By Hadi Fornaji.
Tripoli, 1 December 2014:
Prime Minister Abdullah Al-Thinni has given cautious approval to a Sudanese effort to bring together his . . .[restrict]government in Khartoum for talks with Libya Dawn.
“Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir has offered to host a dialogue between the warring parties in Libya,” Thinni told a Beida press conference today. He went on to say that his government had given its provisional approval, subject to certain conditions, which he did not then explain.
It is unclear when the Sudanese are seeking to holding these face-to-face negotiations. Nor tonight had there been any public response from the Tripoli-based antigovernment of Omar Al-Hassi.
What is known is that this Thursday President Bashir is hosting a meeting of the foreign ministers of Libya’s six neighbours, which it is thought will also be attended by Thinni’s foreign minister Mohamed Al-Dairi. The aim of the gathering is to hammer out a common position toward Libya, including how best to bring about peace talks.
Dairi met his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in Cairo on Sunday. Afterwards Shoukry said that at the Khartoum summit, Libya’s neighbours would be looking at how they could help the country counter radical groups. They would also, he said, seek to find an international approach that would preserve Libya’s stability and its territorial integrity.
Shoukry said that there were no plans to hold the dialogue between the government and Dawn during the summit. After their meeting Dairi thanked Egypt for its support and said his meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister was part of continuing consultations between Beida and Cairo.
It is unclear where the the Khartoum summit stands in relation to the United Nations effort to broker talks between Libya’s rivals. UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) chief Bernardino Leon has been trying to persuade both sides to attend a second round of talks in Ghadames.
Sudan’s intervention in Libya began at the start of November when its foreign minister, Ali Ahmed Karti went first to Tobruk and then Tripoli to explore the options for talks.
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