The Libyan government announced on Sunday evening the postponement of a Council of Ministers initially scheduled for Monday in Benghazi, which was also to mark the Prime Minister's first visit to the east of the country in search of stability, after a decade of chaos .
"The cabinet of the Head of the Government of National Unity announces the postponement of the meeting of the Council of Ministers scheduled for Monday in Benghazi,"
government spokesman Mohamad Hamouda said in a statement.
“Preparations are underway to set a next date,”
he added, without giving the reasons for the postponement.
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This announcement comes a few hours after the security team responsible for preparing for the visit of Prime Minister Abdelhamid Dbeibah and members of his government was turned back on landing at Benghazi airport by local authorities there, forcing him to catch the plane and return to the capital Tripoli, AFP learned from a security source in the east. Abdelhamid Dbeibah had previously announced his intention to hold Council of Ministers in various cities, notably in Benghazi, Libyan second city and stronghold of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the strongman of the East.
Libya is trying to extricate itself from a decade of conflict since the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi, marked by the existence in recent years of rival powers, in the West and East of the country, and bloody violence. Supposed to close this chapter, a new unified executive, born of a process under the auspices of the UN launched in November in Tunis, was put into orbit in February in Geneva, before a "historic" vote of confidence by the Parliament in March. He is responsible for unifying the country's institutions until national elections in December. Sunday's incident confirms the persistence of divisions between East and West, despite the political upturn in recent months.
