UN Mission Seeks to Revive Faltering Talks Between Libyan Rivals

The United Nations Support Mission in Libya is shuttling between Libya's rival governments to bring them to the negotiating table this week, in a bid to safeguard the country's unity and ability to fight terrorism.

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) – In a statement published Wednesday on the UNSMIL website, the mission said it is "undertaking a series of urgent consultations with the parties to ensure the convening of the next round of UN-facilitated Libya talks soon."

This comes after the Libyan parliament on Monday suspended its participation in the talks, scheduled to take place in Morocco this week.

The parliament has its seat in eastern Libya, same as the internationally-recognized government, while a rival political group is holding the Libyan capital of Tripoli in the west.

Some lawmakers in the east have blamed their rivals in the west of having links to Islamist militants, who bombed last Friday the eastern town of Qubbah, killing 45 people.

The UN mission has appealed on the rival conflicting parties "not to allow this window of opportunity to slip away" and renew their commitment to a peaceful resolution of the Libyan crisis.

It also stressed that the rival parties should work together to end terrorism in this North African country, urging the opponents to reach an agreement on a "strong and independent" unity government.

Libya is currently facing the worst wave of violence since the beginning of the 2011 civil war and the ouster of the country's long-time leader Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed following a NATO intervention.