...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
Secretary-General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
has confirmed that the House of Representatives (HoR) is a legitimate body and the product of a fair election.
Ban and his special representative, Bernadino Leon met House of Representatives President Ageela Salah, Libyan Foreign Minister Mohammed Al-Dairi on the sidelines of the Arab Summit in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh on Monday.
The Libyan delegation stressed that it still believes in a political solution to the crisis but spoke of "constraints" one of which was the UN's refusal to lift the arms embargo. Ban was told that the government does not see any linkage between the dialogue and its being enabled to buy arms. The Libyan National Army's fight against terrorism and extremism was a separate issue.
There has been much anger from the Libyan government over the UN's unwillingness to lift the arms embargo, to the point that information minister Omar Gawairi has accused the international community of "trying to make Libyans pay the price for its own failures".