Libya's Aguila Saleh, speaker of the Tobruk-based House of Representatives, said on Saturday that the Libyan people will head to the polls after the capital Tripoli is liberated.

He called on Libyans to stand by the Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar.

Saleh’s statement came during a parliamentary session held in Benghazi in eastern Libya, which is under the control of Haftar’s forces.

Saleh said: “We will be going to the polls after liberating Tripoli,” calling on the international community to protect Libya’s money and to lift the weapons embargo on the National Army.

He also pointed out Libya’s keenness to cooperate with the international community to combat terrorism.

Haftar, 75, a former general in Gaddafi’s army who later joined the revolt against him, moved his troops out of their eastern stronghold to take the oil-rich desert south earlier this year before sweeping up to Tripoli at the start of April.

But Serraj’s national accord government has managed to halt the advance for now, aided by forces with machine-guns on pickups and steel containers across the road into Tripoli.

The Tripoli government says it has taken nearly 200 prisoners from Haftar’s forces, according to Reuters.

The United Nations, which had hoped to organize a national conference this month bringing the rival eastern and western administrations together to organize an election, has called for a ceasefire.

The United States, G7 bloc of wealthy nations and European Union have also urged the LNA to halt its offensive.

Tripoli-based Foreign Minister Mohamed Siyala urged the UN Security Council to call on Haftar to halt the advance.

The UN health agency said it fears outbreaks of tuberculosis, measles and diarrhoea due to poor sanitation, especially among those displaced.

Libya has been gripped by conflict and paralyzed by political deadlock since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. </s> Who agreed to the deal?
• Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, (above second left) head of the UN-backed unity government based in the capital, Tripoli
• Khalifa Haftar, (above right) the 75-year-old military strongman , whose rival Libyan National Army fighters dominate the country's east
• Aguila Saleh Issa, (above second right) the parliament speaker based in the eastern city of Tobruk, who opposes the UN-backed administration
• Khalid al-Mishri, (above left) head of the High Council of State, Libya's highest consultative body formed from the 2012 parliament. </s> A military helicopter crashed in eastern Libya on Tuesday, killing five people including officers loyal to authorities that have refused to cede power to a unity government, parliament said.

It was not immediately clear why the aircraft came down.

The victims included General Idris Yunis al-Dressi, chief of staff for Aguila Saleh, speaker of the internationally recognised parliament based in Tobruk in eastern Libya.

His son Ahmed Idris al-Dressi, who worked in the parliament, was also killed along with two air force colonels and one lieutenant.

The four officers belonged to the forces under the command of military strongman Khalifa Haftar, who has refused to get behind a UN-backed unity government and supports the parallel authority based in eastern Libya near the border with Egypt aligned with the Tobruk parliament.

According to a statement posted on parliament's website, the helicopter was returning from an official visit to Ras Lanuf, a key oil export terminal.

Last week, forces led by Haftar seized Ras Lanuf and three other ports in the so-called "oil crescent".

They later handed them over to the National Oil Corporation.

On Sunday fighters loyal to the unity government launched an attack aimed at retaking two of the ports but were repelled. </s> According to the Libyan official, the parties have reached an agreement on "finalizing a constitutional base for elections" by September 16.

The international conference on the settlement of the situation in Libya is taking place on May 29 in Paris. The meeting is held under the aegis of the UN with the participation of the head of the Government of National Accord of Libya Fayez al-Sarraj, as well as head of the Libyan National Army Khalifa Haftar, who controls the east of the country.

"Positive that all Libya parties present at Paris conference agreed on the timeline leading to elections in December. Let us hope, and help them in keeping this important commitment," Malta's Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said from inside the meeting.

Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Seraj, eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar and the heads of two parliamentary assemblies are attending the talks, which aim to draft a roadmap for elections.

READ MORE: Libya's Haftar Forces Take Control of Entrance to Derna — Spokesman

The country has been in turmoil since the 2011 civil war that resulted in the overthrow of Gaddafi. The eastern part of Syria is governed by its parliament, with headquarters in the city of Tobruk. The parliament is backed by the LNA, which is engaged in the struggle against militants. At the same time, the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, operates in the country's west and is headquartered in Tripoli. </s> MOSCOW – Russia calls on warring parties in Libya to return to the negotiating table and resolve disputes peacefully. Lev Dengov, head of the contact group on intra-Libyan settlement at the Foreign Ministry and the State Duma, explained to Russian media.

The diplomat also said that the aggravation of the situation occurred two weeks before the planned conference. Representatives of Tripoli, headed by the leader of the Government of National Accord Faiz Sarraj, and delegates from the Parliament in Tobruk under the leadership of the Commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) Khalifa Haftar were invited. The special representative noted that Libyans are seriously afraid of foreign intervention and the repetition of the 2011 scenario.

The escalation of the situation in Libya began on April 4 – General Khalifa Haftar, who heads the country’s eastern provinces controlled by the national government in Tobruk, announced the start of a military “operation to liberate Tripoli” and called on residents of the city to voluntarily surrender and go to his side.

After the video message, in which Khalifa Haftar called upon the people of Tripoli to “lay down their arms and raise the white flag,” Prime Minister Faiz Sarraj ordered the troops to be fully operational in order to protect civilians. Military aircraft were scrambled.

As Russian contact-group representative Lev Dengov explains, Moscow is concerned about the aggravation of the situation and calls on both sides to resolve the disputes that have arisen by peaceful means.

“We urge Tobruk and Tripoli to avoid bloodshed.”Throughout this time, our country has maintained contacts with all parties to the conflict – with representatives of Tobruk, Tripoli, and Misurata. Therefore, to say that we support any one side is unfair. We urge the parties to return to a productive peaceful dialogue, to the positions stated during the Palermo conference,” the special representative said.

“The most important thing is to prevent foreign intervention so that the conflict can be resolved without the involvement of third actors,” he added.

“There is a growing concern among the residents of Tripoli that the events of eight years ago may repeat,” the politician said.

FRN assesses that these comments come as a form of diplomatic cover. While it is certainly logical that Russia does not want foreign intervention outside of their own efforts, it is also clear that Russia has overall be en favoring Haftar’s forces from Tobruk. He has already united the vast majority of Libya, and Sirte, Misurata, and Tripoli remain the only areas in control of Sarraj. Sarraj is favored by the west, and is recognized by the UN. However, he is backed by Al Qaeda-type formations, and has been unable to bring stability, let alone economic growth to the war-torn country. This creates a delicate scenario for Russia.

Prior to this, on April 4, speaking at the Libyan Youth Forum, General Haftar said that the political crisis in the country would be resolved already this month by creating a single government. At the time however, experts did not accept the words of Haftar as a possible threat to the authorities in Tripoli – in mid-April it was planned to hold a national conference at which talks were expected between representatives of the East, the West, as well as southern provinces and Misurata, the third largest force in the country, not controlled by Sarraj, nor Haftar. However, it is understood that Misurata sees their fate tied to Sarraj and Tripoli. Should Tripoli be unified with the rest of Libya under Haftar, then Misurata would have no options.

In February, Haftar’s forces seized the largest oil field in Libya, al-Sharara, without encountering much resistance from Tripoli or Misurata. Then there were reports in the press that the army was moving to the south-west of the country, subordinating more and more new areas. Given that the LNA already controls most of the coast, where large export terminals are located, it is safe to say that deliveries of Libyan oil abroad are now almost completely in the hands of Haftar.

The intervention never stopped. “American aviation still strikes at terrorist formations,” the political scientist noted. – This situation is unstable, since there are two centers of power and many different groups that have their own armed structures. And it can not last forever. Will Haftar have enough strength to extend control to the whole country? Before that, nobody could do it.

According to Senator Alexei Pushkov, due to the multiplicity of centers of power in Libya, virtually no Western state has enough authority in Libyan affairs in order to get some kind of compromise from them.

The last round of peace talks between the two opposing camps was held in late February. Then, in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, Faiz Saraj and Khalifa Haftar held talks, at which the parties addressed the most important issues of intra-Libyan settlement. In particular, they reaffirmed their commitment to hold national parliamentary elections in the spring. This idea was expressed during last year’s Palermo Conference by the UN Special Representative for Libya Gassan Salame. It was supposed that the elections would put an end to the existing dual power in the country – according to their results a single parliament was to be formed.

The protracted crisis in Libya is a consequence of the direct and illegal intervention of NATO in the affairs of the country, which led to chaos, said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

“As a result, this country was plunged into chaos, became a source of regional instability, a hotbed of terrorism,” said Lavrov in an interview with the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram before going to Cairo.

The situation in Libya again escalated in early April. The commander of the Libyan National Army, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, announced the launch of an offensive on Tripoli to dismiss the government of national consensus led by Fayez Sarraj, which he considers terrorist.

In turn, in the Libyan capital declared full combat readiness.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at a press conference in Tripoli called on the parties to avoid military clashes.

The UN Security Council supported the Secretary General and announced his intention to bring to justice those responsible for the escalation of the conflict.

In 2011, the United States and the European Union supported the Libyan rebels and promoted the coup d’etat “the Arab spring”, in which the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was killed, and in terms of the number of victims this conflict became the largest in the Middle East, not counting the war in Syria.

So far, clashes continue in the country, besides, dual power has reigned there – a parliament elected by the people sits in the eastern city of Tobruk, and the government of Sarraj, formed with the support of the United Nations and Europe, sits in Tripoli. </s> TRIPOLI, April 5 (Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is flying on Friday to eastern Libya to meet commander Khalifa Haftar, whose forces a day earlier began an offensive to take control of the capital currently held by an internationally recognised government.

Guterres will be also flying to Tobruk, another city in the east and home to Libya's parliament - also internationally recognised - which backs Haftar, he said on Twitter.

"My aim remains the same: avoid a military confrontation. I reiterate that there is no military solution for the Libyan crisis, only a political one," Guterres wrote on Twitter. (Reporting by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Hugh Lawson) </s> U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres met eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi on Friday in a bid to avert renewed civil war as his forces advanced on the capital Tripoli to challenge the internationally recognized government.

The military thrust by Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA), which is allied to a parallel administration based in the east, marked a dangerous escalation of a power struggle that has dragged on since the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

LNA forces on Thursday took Gharyan, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Tripoli after skirmishes with forces allied to Tripoli-based Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj. But they failed to take a checkpoint about 30 km west of the capital in a bid to close the coastal road to Tunisia.

An LNA-allied militia withdrew overnight from so-called Gate 27, leaving it abandoned in the morning, a Reuters reporter said. In another setback, forces allied to Tripoli took 145 LNA fighters prisoner in Zawiya, west of Tripoli, a western commander, Mohamed Alhudair, told Reuters. An LNA source confirmed 128 had been captured.

Sixty vehicles had also been seized, Alhudairi said. Meanwhile armed groups allied to the U.N.-backed Tripoli government moved more machinegun-mounted pickups from the coastal city of Misrata to Tripoli to defend it against Haftar’s forces.

The escalation surprised the United Nations, whose Secretary-General Guterres had been in Tripoli this week to help organize a national reconciliation conference planned for later this month. Guterres, who spent Thursday night in the heavily fortified U.N. compound in a Tripoli suburb, flew to Benghazi and drove to Haftar’s base, witnesses said.

He earlier went to Tobruk, another eastern city, to meet Aguila Saleh, president of the House of Representatives, which is also allied to Haftar. “My aim remains the same; avoid a military confrontation.

I reiterate that there is no military solution for the Libyan crisis, only a political one,” Guterres said on Twitter. On Thursday, Saleh welcomed the offensive. After the meeting with Guterres, his spokesman said they had discussed ways to end the crisis and the planned conference, without giving details.

Haftar enjoys the backing of Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, which see him as bulwark against Islamists and have supported him militarily, according to U.N. reports. The UAE, however, joined Western countries in expressing its deep concern about the fighting.

Germany called an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council due to the military escalation. Russia said it was not helping Haftar’s forces and it supported a negotiated political settlement that ruled out any new bloodshed.

Former colonial power Italy, which lies across the Mediterranean from Libya, was very worried by the turn of events, Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini said. “We need to throw water on the fire, not petrol on the fire.

I hope that people, acting out of economic or business self-interest, is not looking for a military solution, which would be devastating,” Salvini said. Tunisia has tightened control on its border with Libya in response to the renewed conflict, the defense ministry said.

The United Nations and Western countries were already trying to mediate between Serraj and Haftar, who met in Abu Dhabi last month to discuss a power-sharing deal.

The conference the United Nations is helping to organize is aimed at forging agreement on a road map for elections to resolve the prolonged instability in Libya, an oil producer and transit point for refugees and migrants trekking across the Sahara with the aim of reaching Europe. </s> Forces loyal to Libyan renegade general Khalifa Haftar have said that they had taken one of the last remaining strongholds of an al-Qaeda-linked group in the eastern city of Benghazi.

Haftar's self-declared Libyan National Army (LNA) "liberated all of Qanfouda", an area 15km west of the centre of Benghazi, spokesman Colonel Ahmed al-Mesmari posted on Facebook on Wednesday.

Two other LNA officials confirmed to AFP news agency that Qanfouda, the scene of fierce fighting since June against Ansar al-Sharia, had fallen.

In Photos: Libyan forces retake Sirte from ISIL

Jamal al-Zahawi, an LNA commander, told broadcaster Libya Channel that his forces have freed more than 60 people from captivity, following the fighting.

No casualty numbers were provided in the latest fighting.

Another official, however, said there were still pockets of resistance from Ansar al-Sharia, which is linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, in the districts of Al-Saberi and Souq al-Hout.

Regaining Qanfouda is part of a military campaign launched in mid-2014 under Haftar, who repeatedly said his aim is "to drive radical Islamists" from Benghazi.

Benghazi, Libya's second largest city, was the birthplace of the 2011 armed revolt that toppled longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

But Libya descended into chaos after Gaddafi fell, with several armed groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, gaining a foothold in the north African country.

The UN-backed Government of National Accord based in the capital, Tripoli, has failed to assert its authority over the country, while a rival group backed by Haftar runs a separate administration from the eastern city of Tobruk. </s> The UN Security Council on Friday called on forces under the command of Khalifa Haftar to halt an offensive against Tripoli amid concern a battle for Libya's capital could unleash greater instability.

Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) on Thursday launched an assault on Tripoli, held by the UN-backed government and multiple armed militias.

Read more: Libya: The road from revolution to civil war

The offensive by the LNA, which is aligned with a parallel administration in the east of the country, threatens to escalate a civil war that has split the country following the ouster of Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

The council "called on LNA forces to halt all military movements," German UN Ambassador Christoph Heusgen, president of the council for April, told reporters following a closed door session of the body.

"They also called on all forces to de-escalate and halt military activity. There can be no military solution to the conflict," he said.

"The members of the Security Council expressed deep concern at the military activity near Tripoli which risks Libyan stability and prospects for UN mediation and a comprehensive political solution to the crisis," he added.

The call came as the LNA clashed south of Tripoli with militias aligned with the internationally-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Fayez Sarraj.

The LNA said Friday its forces had captured the former international airport south of the capital, a claim denied by the Tripoli-based interior minister.

Haftar's forces have quickly advanced towards the southern outskirts of the capital in recent days as UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was in Libya to push for a national conference scheduled for later this month to develop a roadmap for delayed parliamentary and presidential elections aimed at uniting the country.

After talking with GNA officials in Tripoli, Guterres went to the eastern city of Tobruk on Friday to meet the president of the Libyan House of Representatives. He then met with Haftar in Benghazi in a bid to avert a "bloody confrontation" over Tripoli.

UN envoy Ghassan Salame told the Security Council on Friday that Haftar made clear to Guterres that he intended to continue the assault on Tripoli, diplomats said.

Haftar has presented himself as a seasoned nationalist commander capable of taking on an array Islamist militias, some of which back the Tripoli-based government. He has vowed to clear Tripoli of what he describes as "terrorists," but his critics say he intends strongarm his way to power.

Since 2014, Haftar's forces have wrested control of Libya's oil crescent from mostly government-aligned militias and Islamist groups in the east where oil fields and export terminals are located. Earlier this year, his forces launched an offensive into oil-rich southern Libya and secured border crossings.

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Aguila Saleh, speaker of the Tobruk-based Libyan parliament which Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army is loyal to, states that no peace agreement or UN-backed conference is possible while Tripoli "is occupied by armed groups".