Libya

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain on Thursday imposed sanctions against Libya's Kaniyat militia, saying those who breached international law in Libya would have to face consequences.

ROME (Reuters) -Prime Minister Mario Draghi's office denied a media report on Tuesday that Italy was proposing that the European Union should pay Libya to stop migrants leaving its shores for Europe.

The United States on Monday named Richard Norland, U.S. ambassador to Libya, as the U.S. special envoy for the country, the U.S. State Department said, to lead diplomatic efforts for a negotiated political solution in the North African country.

A senior official at Libya's new Presidency Council denied on Saturday that groups who entered a hotel where the body meets had been armed or used force, playing down an incident that had appeared to illustrate the risks facing the unity government.

Egypt and Turkey on Thursday held talks on the conflict in Libya, where they back competing factions, on Syria and the security situation in the eastern Mediterranean, in a push to rebuild their fractured relations.

BERLIN (Reuters) -German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday that the withdrawal of foreign troops from Libya would be an "important signal" as both leaders vowed to support the new interim government there, a German government spokesman said.

Turkey and Egypt will try to improve strained ties at talks starting in Cairo on Wednesday after an eight-year rift which led them to back rival factions in Libya's war and put them at odds in a dispute over east Mediterranean waters.

Turkish talks with Egypt next week could forge renewed cooperation between the estranged regional powers and help efforts to end the war in Libya, President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman said.

Libya's new interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh will postpone a visit to the country's east that had been planned for Monday to demonstrate his unity government's progress in ending years of division between warring factions.