Western 22 Nov 16

Nov 22, 2016 | International actors

On 17 November, a meeting was held in Rome between the Presidential Council (PC), Central Bank of Libya (CBL) and the National Oil Corporation (NOC). The meeting was a follow on from the international summit on Libya’s economic situation which was held in London three weeks ago. The parties attending the Rome meeting agreed to continue supporting the increase in Libya’s oil production and to make funds available for the PC. Informed sources report that the Government of National Accord (GNA) and CBL are considering devaluing the Libyan Dinar and reducing subsidies as a means to address the crisis. On 21 November, the Libyan Dinar dropped to a historic low of around 7 LYD to one US dollar in the black market.

On 14 November, UN envoy Martin Kobler met with anti-GNA House of Representatives (HoR) members and boycotting PC member Ali al-Gutrani in Egypt. Gutrani said that the UN envoy discussed the possibility of falling back to an earlier draft of the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA). Following LNA gains in Benghazi last week, the UN and US envoys and the British ambassador to Libya all acknowledged the ‘Libyan National Army’s sacrifices against terrorism in Libya’ in their tweets. This is the first time they have publically recognised the contribution of Haftar’s LNA forces to the fight against jihadism in Libya.