Egypt has reopened its embassy in Libya's capital Tripoli after a 12-year absence, a significant step in the mending of ties between Cairo and the neighbouring country's western-based administration.
Egypt has been one of the most prominent backers of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the power behind an administration in the east that is a rival to the Tripoli-based government.
However, relations between Cairo and the eastern administration have recently soured after the eastern parliament last month ratified a 2019 maritime demarcation agreement with Turkey that Egypt and its ally Greece regard as a breach of international law. The agreement was initially reached between Ankara and Libya's western administration.
Egypt closed its Tripoli embassy in 2014, when many foreign missions withdrew amid an escalating conflict that saw the rival governments established in the vast, oil-rich North African country.
Egypt's Foreign Minister, Badr Abdelatty, was quoted as saying the reopening of the embassy "aligns with the deep-rooted human and cultural ties that characterize Egyptian-Libyan relations".
Libya has been plunged into chaos since the fall of Muammar Qaddafi's regime during a Nato-backed uprising in 2011, with the rival governments in the east and west often at loggerheads or locked in open hostilities.
