Rabat – Aguila Saleh, the president of the Libyan Parliament, and the president of the Libyan High Council of State Khaled Al Mishri held a meeting during their recent visit to Morocco, a source from Libya’s High Council of State has revealed.
In a statement to Libyan outlet Libya Al Ahrar TV, the source said the two senior officials met in Morocco and discussed several issues pertaining to the Libyan peace process, including “the mechanism for reopening the draft constitution” and a potential referendum.
Earlier this month, many Moroccan and international media reported on the visit of Al Mishri and Aguila Saleh to Morocco amid renewed fears over the encouraging but stagnating UN-led political dialogue in Libya.
Morocco’s state media did not release any information about the visit, prompting speculation about the significance and the sensitivity of the event.
According to the source from the Libyan High Council of State, the secrecy-covered visit by the two Libyan officials culminated in a series of consultations with senior Moroccan officials regarding the way forward in the decade-long Libyan crisis.
Initially, media sources that covered Saleh and Al Mishri’s Moroccan visit were not sure whether the two Libyan representatives met with Moroccan officials around the same negotiating table.
Libya Al Ahrar TV’s source, however, said that there is a “rapprochement between the two sides” and that both Saleh and Al Mishri were in agreement in Morocco when it came to setting up a set of regulations before the referendum on the new constitution.
In previous comments about the best way to resolve Libya’s long-running crisis, Al Mishri and Saleh had both emphasized the importance of the adoption of a new constitution.
According to reports, many officials in Libya also see the adoption of a new constitution as a necessary step toward the organization of an election to establish a trusted and inclusive central government tasked with restoring security and stability in the war-torn country.
The election was due to take place in December 2021 under the auspices of the UN; but the event was postponed after a parliamentary committee concluded that it would be impossible to hold the electoral process as planned given the current level of preparation.
This week, Aguila Saleh is expected to chair a parliamentary session where he will provide a full briefing on his recent visit to Morocco, MP Ibrahim Al Zaghid told Libya Al Ahrar on Sunday.
Morocco has in recent months and years hosted several consultation meetings convening rival Libyan factions to discuss a mutually acceptable political solution to their country’s crisis.
The most recent Morocco-organized “inter-Libyan meetings” took place last year in the cities of Tangier and Bouznika, and many observers have since credited these two events with laying the groundwork for the UN-led political process to end Libya’s decade-long socio-political quagmire.
