interests of pushing through their ideas and on that level i think they do have. a lying to talk to each other a way of talking with each other and a way of reaching agreements. you going to continue to stand by as we await the arrival of more dignitaries including those to everyone in putin in the meantime let's step back and give our viewers a little perspective libya was divided after its long time ruler mama khadafi was overthrown in a civil war in 2011 the year since then have seen those divisions multiply and increasingly draw in a mixed bag of international players the country and its backers are split between 2 rival governments in tripoli the un backed government. and the libyan national army led by general khalifa haftar. strongman general. wants tripoli.

together with his libyan national army he hopes to capture the country's capital and take full control of this oil rich nation and it's partly because of oil that russia and turkey have waited in on opposite sides of this conflict. with turkey behind. his u.n. backed government and russia supporting huffed. moscow has denied reports it sent mercenaries to reinforce the general's fighters but on thursday turkey confirmed it had started deploying troops to help in tripoli despite a un arms embargo. with libya so unstable the fear of a surgeon islamist terror has worried many european countries but other factors mean in the e.u. is split over its alliances. officially the tripoli based government has the

backing of europe including germany but italian prime minister because if a contest met general haftar earlier this month rome sees him as crucial in stemming the flow of migrants across the mediterranean. and france's concerns over terrorism as well as its interests in libya's oil wealth has put it at odds with the e.u.'s official line there are claims it's given covert military help to gen hof to. earlier this week peace talks in moscow broke down. despite many interests at stake and the players involved germany seems to turman to pursue its mediation role that even if a ceasefire is agreed the road to peace looks a long way off. we are continuing to wait dignitaries arriving to meet with angle or merkel the u.n. secretary general antonio gutierrez and

a host of other foreign dignitaries who are all convening here in berlin to try to hammer out some sort of a deal between the 2 warring factions in libya to try to at least get a cease fire so that further down the line they can come to some sort of long term resolution to all of this in the meantime we're waiting for the arrival of some key key dignitaries including of course we keep mentioning earlier one from turkey and and putin from russia we haven't yet seen. menu in that call from france we understand that he was meeting the german chancellor earlier today and may very well already be in the chancellery but as we talk about him and i'm curious whether you can shed some light on what france has its stake here in the region of course we know that they were a big colonizer there and continue to have material interests on the continent and

certainly france has been. a very there were french colonies both in the middle east and in many parts of africa also north africa as area obviously is an example very important to france and the head of the government is at this meeting here today as well. but more currently apart from the economic interests that france has the french oil company very much involved in libya there is a strategic interest and that goes beyond the sahara desert to west africa to the countries of need book enough os the book enough madi in this area there has been a significant rise in recent years of islamist groups groups that are close to the so-called islamic states or to al qaida and they have made significant progress in . significant inroads into those regions there's been a an international force involved in trying to pacify that region for many years

france is especially deeply involved in that has many soldiers stationed there and helicopter crews has in fact lost quite a number of soldiers in conflict in that region and that borders on libya it borders on southern libya so this region of west africa the sod. borders on libya and the. islamists that are involved there obviously don't respect these borders so the whole conflict spills over into libya as well partly because general huffed is more or less in control of southern did france might be interested in cooperating with him in order to try and. gain some more control in that region bordering on mahdi book enough. so that that adds a further geopolitical complication to the country of libya it shows how central the states the territory of libya is within africa but also within the middle

eastern mediterranean region. i believe now that earlier one might be arriving i'm not seeing we have that is in fact we're seeing pictures now of president out of town from turkey having arrived and he's now entering the chancery to cave. on to and you could terrace the general secretary of the united nations that is a car that is being shown at the moment the last person as far as i can see that we are still waiting for is president vladimir putin of russia presumably we can expect his arrival within the next few minutes shall i want to i want to bring you back in here we were talking about emmanuel now of course the french leader earlier . what do we know about his arrival did you happen to see him do you know whether he was inside meeting with the german chancellor with anyone else or other. you

know i understand that he has had a meeting with the german chancellor in advance i've also learned that and the matter has met with the head of the un backed government. and general khalifa haftar so we might have seen already some important pretty meetings going on preparing the ground for when those wild leaders discuss libya so once inside and we do know that the russian president is someone who doesn't really mind to let also high dignitaries waiting for his arrival. it will be very interesting to see how long these talks will take we have already seen the draft document that is the basis for this meeting it's goes into very much detail it actually is rather surprising in into how much detail it actually goes and i'm just i'm just hearing sirens in the background also the helicopter density does

suggest to me that we might well be seeing the arrival of a mutant any moment now. yes well that's where we stand right now yeah and we also have been pre-warned here from the organizers on the german side that they simply don't know when this meeting will be over it is an open ended meeting it sounds very much like the kind of brussels summit scenarios that our colleagues in brussels are used to which also. is actually comparable in the kind of complexities of interests at stake so we do expect some kind of package deals to be done when those lead to sit around the table. vladimir putin may very well be a leader who likes to make an entrance it should be noted i suppose. we are continuing

to wait to see the next dignitary or dignitaries or arrive at the chance which for these historic talks really as far as it will be is concerned do we know who is not here michelle at this point. well actually i'm seeing less than you are right now but we did see knees it wasn't invited no but that's a very key point axia to need says a very important neighbor of libya libya is a very rich country it used to be a destination country for migrants from tunisia traveling in the region last year i kept hearing how important into relations are between libya and tunisia tunisia was not invited neither was greece which also has significant stakes in the mediterranean which on conflict which what libya has promised to russian president and won so some very important voices won't be at the table but as hans pointed out

. there clearly was a concern here not to let this get too complex and to find agreement on the nuts and bolts of what could lead towards a political process and that is above the promise at the very least of a cease fire and some kind of appearance to the already on paper existing weapons and bog thanks for that michel if you want to add to that yes i frankly i was a little bit surprised in the last couple of days that there have been a number of protests from the side of greece that greek greece was not invited to these talks and i wonder why well the reason is obviously that turkey is the most traditional opponent of greece in the mediterranean and they have very strong conflicting interests around a gas that is meant to be in existence that is the existing wrong for the island of

cyprus there is some dispute about exploiting the gas fields on the mediterranean sea which turkey is trying to. kind of push ahead through its dealings in the region and greece is trying to. back against that that is the reason why greece wants to be at the table here as well now we are seeing pictures of the russian president arriving this is flooding me up this let's just get a oh absolutely larry putin now being having his hand shake by angela merkel and now into a new gutierrez the u.n. secretary general. it is a photo op we have been seeing continually as we. dip into these live pictures. one gets the sense that with the arrival of putin after of course everyone has already arrived that maybe we're about to kick things off.

and they go and. you know i'm struck by something. as i hear both of you talking there are so many players so many interests and one wonders and i'm sure some of our viewers are major international waters but for those people who may not be you know just very interested in the fact that there's a conflict it's drawing in all of these players from around the world but what is it exactly that has and i know it's a macro question but st give me but what is it exactly that has drawn this much international attention to this one country in northern africa is it the fact that libya has so much oil or easy other issues is it the issue of islamics is it a perfect storm in some way of major of of of a myriad of interests i think it's that sort of what you're saying some sort of perfect storm. crossing or you might say a confrontation of interests in this country in this whole region which is actually

one has to say built off of the last maybe of the last decade at least what we are seeing obviously in the whole middle eastern region is a period of instability that started maybe one can say with the arab spring. uprisings in various countries in the region that has continued then with the war in syria with the troubles in iraq and there is a significant power vacuum left in this region by the withdrawal of the united states as well the united states on the major force. kind of a major force of old in this region that is not something that is entirely. thanks to donald trump also barack obama was already a president who tried to reduce united states' involvement in the. through the various changes of government the. fact that people like colonel

gaddafi have been toppled in recent years and withdrawal of the united states from the region a vacuum has come into existence in this region which various other rising powers one might say or reasserting power was trying to fill and that means especially tookie and russia in this region got it i think that we will end it there i wanted to give you the last word michel of i think we're running out of time that in fact concludes our special coverage of the international peace talks here in berlin between a number of countries who have a stake in this german chancellor angela merkel has been welcoming top officials including u.n. secretary general antonio gutierrez u.s. secretary of state mike pompei o and french president. germany says the aim of its diplomatic push is to prevent

libya from becoming a 2nd syria thanks so much for joining us you're watching news i'll have more news at the top of the hour up next is a reporter represented including introducing the black mommas a group doing great things for the miners of south africa appreciate you're going. yes. during the 40 years or more that to become a photographer by link my life inside the waves.