TRIPOLI, Nov. 11 (Xinhua) -- Visiting Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte on Sunday tried to persuade the commander of Libya's eastern-based army Khalifa Haftar to attend the upcoming conference in Italy's Palermo, a military source said.
Conte made the move during his meeting with Haftar in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi during his undeclared visit, a Libyan army officer told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
"The absence of Gen. Haftar means that the whole conference (on Libya) would fail, as he is the most important party in the Libyan issue," the army officer said.
The southern Italian city of Palermo is scheduled to host an international conference on the Libyan crisis on Monday and Tuesday, which will gather major Libyan parties as well as regional and international heads of state.
The source said Haftar decided not to take part in the conference on the ground that "countries that threaten Libya would be represented in the Palermo conference."
However, the military officer did not rule out the possibility of Haftar changing his mind.
"If Haftar did not attend the conference, he would be blamed by the international community," he said.
Despite a UN-sponsored peace agreement signed by the Libyan political parties in 2015, Libya remains politically divided between eastern and western governments, both competing for legitimacy.
