Libya’s two legislative bodies agreed Tuesday to jointly appoint a new central bank governor and end the power struggle over control of the country’s oil revenues that has cut crude output and exports, according to the UN Support Mission in Libya.

Headquartered in the capital, Tripoli, the Central Bank of Libya operates independently of the two governments and is the sole legal repository for Libyan oil revenue. It also pays state salaries across the country and provides millions of Libyans with financial incentives. 

The House of Representatives, based in the eastern city of Benghazi, and the High State Council in Tripoli in the west signed a joint statement after two days of talks hosted by UNSMIL, the mission said. The Tuesday statement from UNSMIL said that they would appoint a central bank governor and a board of directors in the next 30 days. However, the two factions agree to extend the consultations until the end of Sept. 9.

“Following consultations hosted by UNSMIL at its headquarters in Tripoli on Monday and Tuesday, the representatives of the House of Representatives and High Council of State reached important understandings on the crisis of the Central Bank of Libya, particularly on the mechanism and timelines for appointing the CBL Governor and Board of Directors,” UNSMIL said in the statement.

A 2011 NATO-backed uprising led to the overthrow and murder of long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi, which led to a bloody civil war that ended in a cease-fire in 2020. However, the divisions between the two competing governments still exist.