Haftar refuses to attend AU Libya talks

Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar has reportedly refused to attend Saturday’s meeting organised by the African Union’s (AU) Libya committee that will take place with other Libyan political leaders in Brazzaville, the Congo.

The committee last organised a four-day mission to Libya in June. The Congo-Brazzaville President Denis Sassou Nguesso has since been trying to organise a meeting with all of Libya’s leading players including Haftar and Presidential Council head Fayez Al-Sarraj.

Read: International community against political consensus in Libya, says former official

Tomorrow’s meeting will be the third AU summit on Libya and comes as concern mounts over the country’s security situation and ongoing crisis.

According to Haftar’s aide, the House of Representatives (HoR) President Ageela Saleh will be representing the interests of the east of the country in place of the military strongman. Saleh has reportedly already arrived in Brazzaville in the hopes of an early meeting with Nguesso and other AU committee members from Ethiopia, Mauritania, Niger and South Africa.

Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Chad and Sudan are all expected to take part in the meeting; the former three being the most active in mediating a solution to the crisis since the onset of the civil war in 2011. Egypt has grown increasingly close to Haftar and has hosted the military strongman a number of times in Cairo in the hopes of bringing a solution to Libya’s political stagnation.

Read more: Egypt voices support for Haftar following Paris talks

Al-Sarraj has confirmed that he will be attending as well as State Council head Abdulrahman Sewehli.

Haftar’s decision not to attend the meeting contradicts the spirit of reconciliation that defined his meeting with Al-Sarraj in Paris in July at the behest of French President Emmanuel Macron.

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At odds with one another, the rival Libyan leaders agreed on a ceasefire, early elections and the position of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) that was signed in Morocco in 2015 in garnering a solution to the country’s political stalemate. However little has progressed since then and Haftar’s refusal to attend is an indication that reconciliation between the warring sides is unlikely to be remedied by a few table sessions.