Libyan tribal leaders meet in Cairo for peace talks

Hundreds of Libyan tribal leaders met in Cairo on Monday with Egyptian authorities hoping to enlist their help in preventing Islamist violence from spilling over their shared border.
Islamist militants have thrived in the chaos of Libya, a North African oil producer that now has two competing governments backed by armed factions that four years earlier joined in an uprising
that toppled autocrat Muammar Gaddafi.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi sees ascendant Islamists in Libya as a major security threat and is trying to secure the cooperation of tribal leaders to tackle it.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri inaugurated the tribal conference, which runs through Thursday, by highlighting the positive role the tribes could play in restoring stability to Libya.
Egypt had invited the tribal leaders to talks because they were the “backbone” of society and main guarantor of Libyan stability, security and territorial integrity, Shukri said.
“Egypt will not hesitate to support her brother Libyans until they achieve security and reconciliation among themselves,” he said.
But achieving consensus among the hundreds of tribal leaders on how to tackle Islamic extremism could be a long process.