War-ravaged Libya's rival political factions must speed up UN-mediated negotiations leading to the election of a new government, Italy's premier Giuseppe Conte and Libyan counterpart Fayez al-Sarraj agreed Friday at talks in Rome, Conte tweeted.
"We repeated the importance of making rapid progress in the political process under the aegis of the United Nations," Conte tweeted.
"Italy gives full support to inter-Libyan dialogue aimed at an orderly institutional transition that benefits the Libyan people," the tweet added.
Representatives of Sarraj's UN-backed government in Tripoli and the rival administration in Libya's east allied with warlord Khalifa Haftar have been holding UN-led talks since last year to name an interim government before December polls, but have yet to agree on a voting mechanism to do so.
Oil-rich Libya, Italy's former colony, was plunged to chaos after late dictator Muammmar Gaddafi's 2011 ouster and since 2014 has had rival administrations in Tripoli and the east backed by a myriad of armed groups vying for power.
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