In this file photo, a Libyan rebel checks his weapon while guarding petroleum facilities on March 7, 2011 in Ras Lanuf, Libya. (PHOTO / BLOOMBERG)

Rival Libyan military leaders agreed to extend their truce and devise ways to restructure the armed group charged with protecting oil facilities, the head of the United Nations mission to the North African nation said Wednesday.

The envoy, Stephanie Williams, said representatives of Libya’s internationally recognized government in Tripoli and its eastern-based opponents would also reopen land crossings and domestic air travel, without giving details.

The first flights between Tripoli and the main eastern city Benghazi would resume this week, and the sides had agreed to make progress on an exchange of detainees, said Stephanie Williams, the head of the UN mission to Libya

“That is why I continue to be very optimistic that the parties here are going to reach a more lasting and permanent ceasefire,” she told a news conference at the UN in Geneva.

The first flights between Tripoli and the main eastern city Benghazi would resume this week, and the sides had agreed to make progress on an exchange of detainees, Williams said.

Libya has been split since 2014 between an internationally recognized Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli and Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) in the east.

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This week’s meeting between GNA and LNA military negotiators in Geneva will be followed by a political dialogue in Tunis from Nov 9, Williams said.

The rivals are meeting in Geneva until Oct 24 for a fourth round of military talks, one of three tracks being pursued with the aim of ending nearly a decade of conflict in the OPEC member. Repeated efforts to broker a lasting agreement between Fayez al-Sarraj’s government and Haftar have faltered.

Restructuring the Petroleum Facilities Guard could be a key step toward ramping up crude output and exports, which have slumped as the two sides fought.

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An announcement by al-Sarraj that he intends to step down by the end of this month “should help end the long period of transition” and move towards a democratically elected government, Williams said.

With inputs from Reuters