ABC News: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
CAIRO — A handful of top Arab diplomats met Sunday in the Libyan capital in a gathering boycotted by powerful foreign ministers who argued that the mandate of the Tripoli-based government has ended.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five of the 22 member states of the Arab League sent their foreign ministers to the periodic, consultative meeting. They included the chief diplomats of neighboring Algeria and Tunisia<\/a>, local media reported. Others sent their envoys to the meeting in Tripoli.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Among those boycotting the gathering was Egypt, which questioned the legitimacy of Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah\u2019s government after Libya\u2019s east-based parliament appointed a rival premier last year. The foreign ministers of Gulf monarchies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also did not attend, as well as Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul-Gheit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Najla Mangoush, the foreign minister of Libya’s Tripoli-based administration, said in televised comments they \u201cinsist on full exercise of Libya’s rights\u201d in the Arab League, in reference to the rotating leadership of the pan-Arab organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In September, Egypt\u2019s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry withdrew from an Arab League session chaired by Mangoush, protesting her representing Libya at the pan-Arab summit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ahead of Sunday\u2019s meeting, authorities in the Libyan capital granted a day off for civil servants and closed off major roads around the Mitiga airport, the only functional airport in the capital, and a luxury hotel where the gathering took place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Prime Minister Fathy Bashagha, who chairs a rival government in the country’s east, called the meeting a \u201cfarce\u201d orchestrated by Dbeibah’s administration to claim that it is the internationally recognized government in Libya. He hailed those who boycotted the meeting and called on Algeria and Tunisia to reconsider their Libya policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n