Experts: Snags hinder Paris Agreement between Libyan rivals

By Khaled Jabbar TUNIS, July 26 (KUNA) -- Despite political breakthrough created by the recent Paris Agreement between Libyan political rivals, an imminent solution to the Libyan crisis is not on the cards due to major stumbling blocks.
Libya's UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) chief Fayez Al-Sarraj and Libya's Military Commander Khalifa Haftar reached in Paris on Tuesday a political solution to their country's crisis, including a ceasefire agreement.
The deal was sponsored by French President Emmanuel Macron, with the attendance of UN Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salamah.
The agreement is based on 10 basic principles mainly aiming at moving forward the process of national reconciliation; the most important of which is a ceasefire and early presidential and parliamentary elections.
Speaking to KUNA, Tunisian experts said the agreement included a number of positive indications, but cautioned that it would not be so easy to put it in place on the ground due to a set of impediments, chiefly security.
The meeting, which was sponsored by the French President and brought Al-Sarraj and Haftar together in Paris, ushers in a strong return of Paris to the Libyan problem, thus regaining its diplomatic role, Monther Thabet, a Tunisian journalist and political analyst, told KUNA.
It also reflects Macron's ambitions for a leading role in Africa, primarily Sahel Region and the western Mediterranean Sea, he suggested.
The Paris Agreement is based on two core aspects: a ceasefire and a political roadmap aiming at unifying all military groups and forces in a single national army, elections and national reconciliation, he added.
On his part, Rafea Al-Tabeeb, a Tunisian academic and expert in Libyan affairs, lamented that the Paris Agreement is just a deal between two parties of the Libyan political scene. Although both of them are influential in Libya, they don't represent the overall military and political scene in this war-torn country, he said.
Speaking to KUNA, he pointed to some sort of imbalance between Al-Sarraj and Haftar as the former has nothing but just international recognition, while the latter has recent made field victories and gained more support.
The Tunisian expert lashed out at the Paris Agreement for having unequivocally ignored other Libyan groups and tribes which wield much public support.
Therefore, he expected the Paris deal to have the same fate of the previous UN-facilitated Skhirat political agreement which had stalled due to the exclusion of more key actors in inter-Libyan reconciliation and political process. (end) ksj.mt