French Foreign Minister attempts to resume UN talks in Libya

Libya's rival factions should stick to a United Nations peace process and prepare for elections in spring 2018, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said on Thursday, trying to give stalled UN talks a new push.
The North African country has two rival governments, one in the east and a U.N.-backed administration in the capital Tripoli in the west, in a conflict stemming from the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
France was a leading player in the NATO intervention against Gaddafi, sending warplanes to bomb his forces.
The United Nations launched a new round of talks in September in Tunis between the rival factions to prepare for presidential and parliamentary elections in 2018, but they broke off after one month.
"I noted the desire from the Prime Minister (Fayez al-Seraj) to stick to the calendar. We have a total convergence of views to implement this agenda," Le Drian said after meeting the Tripoli-based prime minister in the Libyan capital.

Drian will later fly to the eastern city of Benghazi to meet the powerful eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar, who on Sunday called the UN-backed government and peace process obsolete.
The UN talks had stumbled over the...