The United States said today, Friday, that it agreed with the UN envoy to Libya, Abdullah Batili, on the need to help make 2023 a year of free and fair Libyan elections.

And the US State Department stated in a statement that the United States hosted yesterday, Thursday, in New York, an international meeting on Libya, in which the UN envoy to Libya participated, and high-level officials from Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Qatar, Turkey, the Emirates and Britain.

The statement confirmed that Batelli briefed the participants on the latest developments regarding his consultations with leaders and institutions in Libya, with the aim of strengthening a consensus leading to holding elections in 2023.

Participants in the meeting learned about the achievements made by the Libyan Parliament and the High Council of State in the negotiations - facilitated by Egypt - regarding the constitutional basis for the elections.

Supporting the Libyan elections #Libya https://t.co/llHqkwBfij

— US Embassy - Libya (@USEmbassyLibya) February 24, 2023

And last Tuesday, Batelli said in a tweet that he had left Tripoli for New York to brief the UN Security Council on the situation in Libya on February 27, after his last briefing to the Council in December 2022.

growing affinity

Batelli said there was a growing convergence of opinion that elections should be held in 2023.

Libya was scheduled to witness presidential and legislative elections in December 2021, but they were postponed indefinitely due to disagreements (between state institutions) over the constitutional basis for elections and the presence of controversial candidates.

And in early February, the first announced meeting was held in the city of Benghazi (eastern Libya) between Fathi Bashagha, the head of the government supported by the House of Representatives, and retired Major General Khalifa Haftar, and the internationally recognized national unity government confirmed that it was ready to secure the elections.

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya has learned of the circulation of a number of documents on social media, which claim to represent the proposed plan of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Mr. Abdullahi Batili, to address the political crisis in Libya.

pic.twitter.com/XCJgys1xuE

— UNSMIL (@UNSMILibya) February 24, 2023

Since March 2022, Libya has witnessed a political conflict, as the House of Representatives in Tobruk granted confidence to the Bashagha government, instead of the unity government headed by Abdul Hamid al-Dabaiba, which is recognized by the United Nations, and which refuses to hand over power except to a government assigned to it by a new elected parliament.

To resolve this crisis, the United Nations launched an initiative that led to the formation of a joint committee of the House of Representatives and the Supreme Council of State to agree on a constitutional basis for holding parliamentary and presidential elections, but this path faltered.

Subsequently, on the eighth of last December, the Presidential Council launched an initiative to hold a forum for dialogue between the three councils (the Presidential Council, the House of Representatives, and the state) in the presence of the UN envoy to Libya.