On 20 September, the UN Secretary General António Guterres and Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame outlined the proposed new UN roadmap for Libya at a high level meeting on Libya which took place at the UN General Assembly in New York. The roadmap consists of a 3 stage process. The first involves gaining consensus for limited amendments to the existing Libyan Political Agreement (LPA) by December this year. In order to progress towards this, members from both the House of Representatives (HoR) and the High State Council (HCS) will meet in Tunis on 26 September to begin negotiating the amendment draft with UNSMIL teams.
The second stage is a National Congress Conference of all HoR and HCS delegations, along with those factions who have so far been ostracized, marginalized or have been reluctant to join the political process. The aim of the conference will be to bring all Libyan actors together to agree and endorse the members of a new unity government and discuss the proposed constitution produced by the Constitutional Drafting Assembly (CDA). The third stage is envisioned as the HoR and the CDA working together to prioritize the legislation for a constitutional referendum and subsequently legislation for parliamentary and presidential elections.
Salame wants all of this to be achieved within a timeframe of one year from now. He also stressed that there must be dialogue with armed groups, an initiative to unify the national army, an intensification of local reconciliation efforts, and decisive actions to address the important issue of Internally Displaced Persons. He also called on UN member states to participate in a new round of funding for the United Nations Stabilization Fund.
On 22 September, the US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert issued a special communiqué applauding Salamé’s “outreach” to Libyan leaders and calling on all Libyans to support and engage in his mediation efforts. Significantly, she said that “the United States will not support individuals who seek to circumvent the UN-led political process.”