EU top diplomat Josep Borrell met with the Chair Fayez al-Sarraj and his administration in Tripoli, Libya.

According to Borrell Twitter micro blog the discussion focused on advancing of the political process and establishing the cease-fire announced separately by conflicting parties last month.

Borrell and Sarraj also discussed the possibility of resuming negotiations between representatives of both conflicting parties – the Chairman al-Sarraj administration in Tripoli and Marshal Khalifa Haftar, leading the Libyan National Army (LNA), and ruling in the east of the country.

Borrell also mentioned the possibility of lifting the sanctions on oil trade, but he insisted on keeping the UN arms embargo, describing it a key element “to bring the Libyan conflict to an end.”

“Libya remains a top priority for EU,” he said, adding that the bloc supports “dialogue and Libyan-led political resolution” under the Berlin process following January’s conference in Germany.

The Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) declared a cease-fire on August 21.The UN-recognized government ordered the military to bring to a halt all combat operations, and urged presidential and parliamentary elections in March.

Aguila Saleh the speaker of the Tobruk-based parliament also called for the cease-fire to be observed in the Eastern part of the country.

Libya has been torn by civil war since the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. At present the East Libyan authoritity – the Tobruk parliament backed by the Libyan National Army, led by Marshall Khaftar – does not recognise the status of Tripoli administration of Al-Sarraj. They repeatedly underlined in various statesments that the Shkirat Agreement (December 17,2015, Morocco), which has given a mandate for one year to the reconciliation goverment in Tripoli, has been expired a long time ago. They reiterated, that the result of this failure to realised the mandate within one year led to the «unconstitutional» status of the Tripoli government, while the status of the Tobruk parliament has been recognised the UN Security Council as the Libya sole legislator.

Since last September, several high-level meetings were held in Berlin, launching the peace process, aiming at resolution of the Libyan conflict, with the participation of France, Italy, Germany, and the UK.