New power-sharing plan offered by UN's Libya envoy

The United Nations envoy to Libya, Bernardino Leon, has issued a deadline to the country's warring sides to respond to his latest plan for a power-sharing agreement, diplomats say.
Leon stated in a closed-door UN Security Council meeting on Wednesday that he was "hopeful" a deal could be reached, according to diplomats who attended the meeting.
The unnamed diplomats said Leon further asserted that he had distributed a draft agreement to the parties to the Libyan conflict two days ago and that the respective delegations were reviewing it with an understanding that they should offer a response by next Sunday.

UN special representative and head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya, Bernardino Leon, gestures during a press conference in the Algerian capital, Algiers, on March 11, 2015. ©AFP

Since January, the United Nations has been making efforts to broker a deal on the establishment of a national unity government in the war-ravaged North African nation.
Libya has two rival camps vying for the control of the country, with one governing the capital Tripoli and the other, which is the internationally-recognized government, controlling the eastern cities of Bayda and Tobruk. The Libyan internationally-recognized parliament, the House of Representatives, is based in Tobruk.
Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn) militiamen took over Tripoli in the summer of 2014. They set up their own government and reinstated the General National Congress (GNC), which had been dissolved earlier.
Several rounds of peace talks brokered by the UN in recent months have failed to deliver any practical results that could lead to formation of a unity government.
Libya plunged into chaos following the 2011 uprising against the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi, whose ouster gave rise to a patchwork of heavily-armed militia groups and deep political divisions.