World powers in new push for Libya peace

(files) This file photo taken on January 19, 2020 shows a general view of participants attending the Peace summit on Libya at the Chancellery in Berlin.

World powers gathered Wednesday in Berlin to seek lasting peace in Libya by ensuring the conflict-wracked North African country stays firmly on the path towards general elections on December 24. Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah of Libya's interim government is joining US Secretary of State Antony Blinken as well as the foreign ministers of France, Turkey and Egypt at the UN-sponsored talks. Russia's Sergei Lavrov will be absent, but deputy foreign minister Sergey Vershinin will attend in his place. The efforts to end a decade-long spiral of violence in Libya are the second round held in Berlin, after the first attended by the presidents of Turkey, Russia and France in January 2020, before the pandemic.