Libya’s eastern government says oilfields closed over central bank spat

Two rival governments have been fighting for days over the central bank’s leadership, threatening a UN-brokered peace deal. Libya’s internationally-unrecognised eastern-based government is shutting down oilfields in response to “attacks on the leadership and employees of the Central Bank of Libya”, its prime minister, Osama Hammad, says. Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, the prime minister of the internationally-recognised Government of National Unity, based in the capital Tripoli in western Libya, said that oilfields should not be allowed to be shut down “under flimsy pretexts”. The announced oilfield shutdown comes as part of an ongoing dispute between the eastern government and the UN-recognised government based in Tripoli, which for days have been fighting over the central bank’s leadership, threatening a UN-brokered peace deal. The Tripoli government’s Presidential Council appointed Mohamed Alshukri as governor of the central bank last week, Al Jazeera’s Libya correspondent Malik Traina said, a move rejected by the CBL.