Algeria Hikes Its Representation To highest Level In Paris Meeting On Libya

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika instructed Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia to take part in the international conference on Libya due to be held on Tuesday in Paris, under the auspices of the United Nations.
The aim of the conference is to clear the way for the establishment of Libyan state institutions through the holding of elections in a bid to bring back peace and stability in the country.
“President Bouteflika entrusted Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia with representing him at the Paris international conference on Libya, which was called by his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron,” said a statement issued by the Premiership Office.
This is the second mandate assigned by President Bouteflika to PM Ouyahia in more than two weeks, on the political scene in which the attendance of the prime minister declined in return for the presence in the political arena of other names in the Government, such as the Minister of the Interior and Local Assemblies, Noureddine Bedoui and Justice Minister Tayeb Louh.
The Paris meeting will be chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron and attended by Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Al-Sarraj, as well as by the Commander of the so-called “Dignity Operation”, retired Major General Khalifa Hafter and the Speaker of the Libya’s House of Representatives Aqila Saleh Issa.
The aim of the meeting, according to Agence France-Presse, is to “create the conditions for finding a way out of the Libyan crisis and to define a framework for sustainable institutions recognized by the international community,” with the involvement of Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Chad and Niger, as well as the countries that are influential in the Libyan crisis, such as Qatar and Turkey supporting the internationally recognized interim government, as well as the United Arab Emirates supporting the Haftar camp in the east, and the five member states in the UN Security Council.
Congolese President Denis Sassou Nguesso, as Chairman of the African Union High Level Committee on Libya, and the head of the UN mission to Libya, Ghassan Salama, will also take part in the Paris meeting.
The increase in the level of Algerian representation in this meeting reached the level of the Prime Minister, as it is in the interest of the higher authorities to defend the Algerian view in the field of initiatives aimed at resolving for good the crisis now wracking this eastern neighbor, as it was proven that many of these lame initiatives are driven by calculations of interest and geopolitics.
Last week, Algeria hosted a tripartite meeting of foreign ministers of Libya’s neighboring countries, including Tunisian Khamis Al-Jahnawi and Egyptian Sameh Shoukri.
The encounter reaffirmed in a final statement the call to speed up the political solution by rejecting the security solutions and renewed support for ongoing UN efforts designed to thrash out a consensual negotiated solution to the lingering Libyan crisis.
The French initiative refers to a number of issues, foremost of which is the unification of the Libyan Central Bank and the dissolution of all parallel or informal institutions of the main administrations, such as the Haftar militias, which have rebelled against the central government, in addition to the agreement to hold general elections before the end of this year.
The initiative provides for deterrent measures against all those who rebel against or seek to block the election agenda set up by the international community, a message specifically addressed to retired Major General Khalifa Hafter, who, days after his return from his medical trip in Europe, stated that he refuses to conduct the electoral process at the present time by insisting on seeking an end to the Libyan crisis through the security-related solution.