(TAP) - President Béji Caid Essebsi pointed out the importance of combining the efforts of all sides for a comprehensive political settlement of the Libyan crisis. He called for common positions as regards notably commitment to international legality.

For him, the Libyan political agreement signed last December 15, should serve as a reference document for the next negotiation meetings, according to his address to the participants of the African Union (AU) High-Level Committee Meeting in Addis Ababa on the follow-up of the situation in Libya and which was read by Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui.

Tunisia, affirmed the President of the Republic, strongly supports all efforts exerted by the AU to reach a political solution in Libya. He recalled that Tunisia had actively participated in all the meetings of the AU High Level Committee on Libya.

Beji Caid Essebsi called on the UN secretary-general and his new representative in Libya Ghassan Salama to hasten the launch of a political dialogue in compliance with the mechanisms agreed upon in the political agreement. He also recommended establishing a broad consensus platform on possible revisions that Libyans could make to this agreement.

In his address, Caid Essebsi spoke of the security drifts in Libya and their repercussions on the region, recomming that all sides should support the Libyan people and strive for a political solution based on dialogue and consensus in order to end the transitional period, through the organisation of elections and the establishment of perennial institutions within conceivable and studied timeframes and under the auspices of the United Nations.

The aim is, according to him, to establish the mechanisms of peaceful alternation of power and to undertake work related to development and reconstruction.

The Head of State underlined that Tunisia has spared no effort since the beginning of the Libyan crisis in 2011 to alleviate the suffering of the Libyan people and promote the initiatives advocating dialogue between the different Libyan factions, out of convinced that the solution must be political, that the security drifts must cease and that the suffering of this brotherly people must end.

He referred in this regard to his initiative launched on December 15, 2016, for a comprehensive political solution to the Libyan crisis in the face of the stagnation of the UN political process.

Caid Essebsi also recalled the friendship and neighborhood ties binding Tunisia and Libya and the joint interests shared by both countries.

The initiative, he recalled, subsequently became tripartite (Tunisian-Algerian-Egyptian) after its adoption by the three countries on February 20, 2017. It gave hope to all sides and helped create a new dynamic at the local and regional planes and to pave the way for bilateral dialogue between the Libyan protagonists. He referred to the meetings held in Rome and Abu Dhabi.

He also said that this initiative, which goes hand in hand with other initiatives and is within UN's framework, seeks to bring Libyans close to each others and reach political agreement within an interlibyan dialogue. It is also a question of putting in place a broad consensus platform on the revisions that could be proposed by the dialogue committee.

The Tripartite initiative sends a message to the Libyans and to the community on the need to focus on the political solution and avoid internal escalation or any external interference in its affairs, Caid Essebsi argued.

Tunisia, which supported the Libyan political agreement under the aegis of the United Nations and supported the Libyan Presidential Council as a recognised legitimate authority, spared no effort to promote the efforts of the UN mission for Support in Libya (which is headquartered in Tunisia), as testified to, he specified, by the assistance provided to facilitate the return of the UN mission members taken hostage in Zaouia.

The President of the Republic reiterated confidence in the ability of Libya's neighboring countries and the African Union institutions to boost international efforts to step up the political process in Libya.

Foreign Minister Khemaies Jhinaoui leads the Tunisian delegation to the 29th Summit of Heads of State of the African Union (AU), July 3-4 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.