Lotfy Zaitoun, the political advisor to the co-founder of Tunisia’s Ennahdha Party Rachid al Ghanouchi announced a potential meeting between the latter and Khalifa Haftar, the military commander of Libya’s eastern government.
Tunisia has extensive contacts with all parties of the Libyan conflict and are seeking to bring together their points of view. Reconciliation meetings between the Libyan adversaries could be announced soon, said Zaitoun.
Tunisia is sparing no effort to open dialogue channels among all Libyan factions in order to reach a peaceful solution that puts and end to the deteriorated security situation in the neighboring Arab state, he added.
Libya splintered into rival political and armed groupings after the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 and remains deeply divided between factions based in the east and west that back rival governments and parliaments.
Haftar, who is aligned with the eastern parliament and government based in Tobruk, has been fighting a two-year military campaign with his Libyan National Army against Islamic extremists and other opponents in Benghazi and elsewhere in the east.
Haftar has received public backing from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, and France sent special forces to work alongside Haftar’s Libyan National Army earlier this year. Recent military advances by Haftar’s forces have boosted his popularity at home.