FM: Libya Internationally Recognized Govt. Backs U.N. Talks

Libya's internationally recognized government has given its backing to U.N.-brokered talks between warring factions aimed at halting unrest across the country, its foreign minister said late Thursday.

U.N. Special Representative Bernardino Leon in Libya chaired a first round of talks between rival politicians in the oasis town of Ghadames in September, and will lead a new round of negotiations on December 9.

"As the foreign minister, I welcome the holding of the second Ghadames meeting and we express our support for Bernardino's efforts," Mohamed al-Dairi told AFP in Khartoum late Thursday.

"We want the Ghadames approach to reach a government of national unity to manage the transitional period," Dairi said.

Dairi's government has been virtually confined to the remote eastern towns of Shahat and Tobruk since Islamist-backed militia seized Tripoli in August.

Since then, a rival administration has been formed in the capital.

Dairi said there would be "another meeting for military formations and armed groups that will be separate from the meeting for the political parties".

He did not specify which armed groups would be taking part in the discussions.

Some of these groups have seized vital oil installations, but Dairi said most of these areas were under his administration's control, "except for some small areas under the control of armed military formations outside the authority of the state".

Dairi was in the Sudanese capital for talks between Libya's neighbors -- Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Niger and Tunisia, as well as Sudan -- who have pledged their support for the U.N. mediation effort.

More than three years after longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in a NATO-backed revolt, Libya is awash with weapons and powerful militias, and has rival parliaments as well as governments.

Earlier, an air strike hit a Libyan militia post on the border with Tunisia, killing one person and wounding several others, a militia spokesman said.

The Libya Shield militia accused forces loyal to the internationally recognized government of carrying out the raid close to the Ras Jedir border crossing.

"One Libya Shield member was killed and between three and five were wounded," spokesman Hafedh Muammar told AFP.

Libya Shield forms part of the Islamist-backed militia alliance which seized the capital and much of the west in August, forcing the internationally backed government to take refuge in the remote east.

Forces loyal to the government have carried out a spate of air strikes in western Libya in recent days.

On Thursday, they hit what they said was a militia position in the south of Tripoli.

But their militia rivals, who have set up their own administration in the capital, said the strike hit a poultry farm.

On Tuesday, air strikes on the coastal city of Zuara, between Tripoli and Ras Jedir, killed seven people, including five African migrant workers.

Forces loyal to prominent former general Khalifa Haftar, who is now allied with the internationally recognized government, control the Al-Woutia air base in western Libya.

Haftar's forces have been battling Islamist militia in second city Benghazi since October. He has also vowed to end militia control of the capital within three months.