Libya’s UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj holds French-brokered talks Tuesday with Khalifa Haftar, the rival military commander who controls the east, to try to end the chaos in the conflict-ridden country.
French President Emmanuel Macron has organised the talks but his office has stressed that it has modest expectations of the meeting to be held in a chateau just outside Paris.
The aim is to persuade the two sides to at least outline a roadmap for an end to a conflict that has plunged the oil-rich country into chaos since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
The two leaders will be asked to agree to a ceasefire among other commitments, a French diplomatic source told AFP.
Macron will welcome Sarraj and Haftar before the newly appointed UN envoy for Libya, Ghassam Salame, chairs the talks, but the French president will make a statement at the end of the day.
It is the second time that Sarraj and Haftar have met in the space of three months after they held talks in Abu Dhabi in May. That meeting made little progress.