Libya's rival factions resume talks in Geneva

Libya’s rival factions resumed talks in Geneva on Thursday. The peace talks are aimed at brokering a lasting ceasefire in the war-torn country.
“The talks are under way again,” said Jean El Alam, a spokesman for the United Nations Support Mission in Libya. “It is not that one side is back, it is one side came back with the intention to move forward, which is different”, Ghassan Salame, the UN  envoy to the country, said after the Thursday talks.
Salame launched a second round of peace talks on Tuesday with five representatives from each of the factions. However, the country’s UN-recognised government, GNA, announced it was halting its participation from the talks following an attack on a strategic port in the capital, Tripoli by the rival militia of Khalifa Haftar’s LNA.
The attack was condemned as a violation of an arms embargo that the UN is focused on implementing around the country. UN chief Antonio Guterres, as well as Stephanie Williams, the UN Deputy Special Representative to Libya have repeatedly warned that the conflict has to stop being fueled by foreign intervention, as the UAE and Turkey refuse to stop arming their allies. The LNA is backed by the United Arab Emirates, France, Russia and Egypt, while the GNA’s main supporter is Turkey.
More than 1,000 people have been killed in the violence since April, when Haftar’s forces launched an offensive to seize Tripoli, which is controlled by the GNA. The LNA has also largely stopped the country’s oil production, after they seized several large oil export terminals along Libya’s eastern coast as well as its southern oil fields.