Libyan authorities reopen Benghazi port after years of closure

Despite no official statements from the French authorities, Khalifa Hafter has had talks in Paris with the French government, according to a source close to him.

He arrived in Paris on Thursday where he met French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, reportedly to “brief” him on the current situation in Libya as well as his talks in Rome with the Italian government. For his part, Le Drian is said to have stressed on Hafter the need to stick to the Saint-Cloud agreementon a ceasefire and elections made with Presidency Council head Faiez Serraj in July. However, Le Drian had already done this when he met Hafter in Benghazi earlier this month.

The field marshal is still in the French capital and will return to Benghazi tomorrow, Sunday, the source added. Meanwhile, Interim prime minister in the Beida government, Abdullah Thinni, together with Ali Gatrani, the boycotting member of the Presidency Council, were the chief personalities at a ceremony today to mark the reopening of Benghazi port after three years of enforced closure and welcome the arrival of the Greek-owned general cargo vessel Lady Haloum.

A large crowd had assembled at the port to take part in the ceremony following the go-ahead from Major-General Abdul Razzaq Al-Nazhuri, the military governor for the area from Ben Jawad to Derna. He visited it in Julyto assess its readiness for reopening and lifted the ban on its use on 23 September.

Yesterday, the acting port manager, Hussein Al-Shara who was appointed by Nazhuri while Mustafa Elabbar is away, said that that the harbour had been checked over by military engineers to confirm that there was no unexploded ordinance and that the harbour pool had likewise been searched and cleared by divers. Today’s ceremony was also attended by the acting mayor of Benghazi, Abdulrahman Elabbar, together with a number of leading maritime officials and managers of other ports in the eastern region.

On the political side, The dialogue committees of the House of Representatives (HoR) and the State Council (SC), meeting in Tunis to work out amendments to the Libyan Political Agreement have agreed to reduce the Presidency Council (PC) from nine to three and that the prime minister should be a separate appointment.

The decisions, which had been widely expected, were announced at a press conference in Tunis today. Commenting on the two committees’ talks which started last Tuesday, UN special envoy Ghassan Salamé spoke of there having been “a positive atmosphere and a clear convergence of views”.

The two sides will now report to their colleagues before again sitting down to hammer out the remaining points of contention. These centre on supplementary Article No. 8 on who exactly appoints top military, civil and security posts, and the HoR demand that the SC contain not 145 members as currently stipulated in the LPA but 200, being the 200 members of the General National Council originally elected in July 2012, or those who replaced members who resigned. At present the SC consists of 138 members.

The addition of those former GNC members who were not invited to join the SC is being resisted by some of the current membership who fear that it will alter its balance of power. It is also reported that there has been discussion over extending the term of Constitution Drafting Assembly by another three months to come up with an amended version to what it proposed or whether there should be a return to the 1951 or 1963 constitution.

Both the heads of the two dialogue committees, Abdualslam Nasia of the HoR and Musa Faraj of the SC, have expressed optimism about the remaining issues being resolved. Nasia also said that while the mechanism of nominating the new PC members and the prime minister had been covered, no names were mentioned.

“We have not discussed any names, nor did we build these structures with people in mind.” For his part, Faraj has said that if and when the amended LPA is approved, there will be a gap of some 50 weeks before parliamentary and presidential elections could be held.