The UN's former envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, says he has higher hopes than ever of seeing an end to a decade of violence in the country.
"I'm very optimistic," the Lebanese diplomat said. "What we've seen in the past two months is an accumulation of positive factors."
Salame spoke in an interview with AFP a day after rival military delegations concluded their latest UN-led meetings inside Libya to fill in the details of a landmark October ceasefire deal.
Meanwhile political talks, also led by the world body, were underway in Tunisia aimed at appointing an interim government to organize elections and govern a country battered by conflict, economic crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
On Friday evening the UN announced that delegates in Tunisia had agreed that national polls should be held on December 24 next year.
Salame resigned in March citing health reasons and stress, but was the architect of the UN's current Libya peace efforts and has stayed closely involved.
Speaking from his home in Paris, he warned that "a war that has been raging for one decade cannot be solved in a day."
But after months of relative calm and a string of positive steps, the 69-year-old said Libyans had shown "a truly renewed interest" in dialogue.
Salame said Libya was now close to being able to run elections safe enough to be "reasonably representative of the will of the people."
"I believe this can be done in the next six or seven months."
