On Dec. 2, Bernardino Leon, the head of United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), announced a new round of talks between Libyan rival groups to be held in the desert oasis of Ghadames on Dec. 9. These talks will be a follow-up to last September’s, which brought together parliamentarians and their boycotting colleagues. In that initial meeting, both sides expressed their opinions on how to reconcile the country’s two rival governments and avert further bloodshed.
Since then, however, Libya has gone through many changes. The novice army backed by Gen. Khalifa Hifter appears to be gaining on the ground, at least in Benghazi. Meanwhile, the Libya Dawn leadership in Tripoli has entrenched its political position after the Supreme Court declared the elected parliament in Tobruk illegal, thus annulling it, and used Leon’s visit to Tripoli last October to further advance its claim of legitimacy.
