Marruecos organiza una nueva cumbre inter-libia

Morocco is organising a new summit in Rabat on Friday with the aim of unifying Libya's institutions. The Moroccan authorities intend to highlight their influence in the region after managing to bring two of the most important figures in the Libyan political scene to the negotiating table, such as the President of the House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and the President of the Council of State, Khalid Almishri, after the double suspension of the dialogue.

The House of Representatives and the Council of State have been involved in a dispute in recent months over the procedure for selecting the heads of the seven sovereign institutions. The Council has accused the Parliament of acting unilaterally following the formation of a specific committee to prepare the final lists of candidates, contrary to what was agreed in recent negotiations on Moroccan territory.

The last time negotiations materialised in Morocco was last October, during the so-called Bouznika dialogue. At the first meeting, the parties involved reached "important agreements on the mechanisms to be taken into account in the election of the occupants of these positions", according to the deputy of the House of Representatives, Driss Omran.

However, the second round of talks ended with a deadlock in the appointment of the heads of the seven institutions of the North African country, which will be delayed until this Friday. The lack of consensus then derailed the agreement and blocked the aspirations of arriving at the elections on 24 December with a cohesive state.

This new round of conversations will be attended by several representatives of the parties involved in the Libyan conflict and will be hosted by the Moroccan authorities. The meeting is expected to produce the new figures who will head the seven Libyan institutions in the coming months, a conditio sine qua non for the effective progress of the political transition.

The President of the Moroccan House of Representatives, Al-Habib al-Maliki, held a meeting on Thursday with the President of the Parliament, Aguila Saleh, and the head of the High Council of State, Khalid Almishri, the highest representatives of both factions. At the meeting, the Moroccan sought to calm the differences between the two leaders and facilitate the framework for negotiations to resolve the blockade.

The Alawi Kingdom has been working on the Libyan issue since 2014 with the support of the United Nations and Washington, simultaneously with the negotiations in Tunisia and Geneva. Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita assured in October that this is an inter-Libyan dialogue and not a dialogue about Libya, and that it is being conducted by the Libyans themselves 'without any interference', in an attempt to underline the obvious differences between the various summits on the issue.

Morocco's intervention in the Libyan conflict led to the Sjirat pact, signed at the end of 2015, in which it was agreed to create a national unity government with a president, two vice-presidents and six other members. This agreement has become a reference for a solution in Libya, despite partial rejection by eastern Libya.

Another important factor for Morocco, perhaps the most important for the Kingdom's aspirations, is Algeria's role in Libya. The neighbouring country also remains committed to the issue, and this irritates Rabat. Algiers applied for the position of special correspondent in Libya, but Ramtan Lamamra's candidacy was rejected by Washington, Morocco's next ally since the signing of the Abraham Agreements.

The Algerian president's invitation to the Berlin conference last year, added to the fact that no representative of the Kingdom was invited, led to a tension between Berlin and Rabat that continues today. Moreover, Libyan Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah travelled to the Algerian capital last weekend after refusing an invitation to Rabat in February, a factor that forces Morocco to strengthen its role.