Norland “asks us to calm down, reduce tension and respect the ongoing electoral process. I hope he saves his advice because he is interfering in a matter that does not concern him,” Al-Shater wrote on Twitter.

Earlier this month, the diplomat received a barrage of questions for receiving a group of presidential candidates.

“The US ambassador sends negative impressions to Libyans by adopting the diplomacy of intervention, pressure and threats,” former Culture Minister Al-Habib Al-Amin wrote then on Facebook.

“It is shameful and regrettable that election candidates who claim to run for national considerations and objectives are influenced by the policies and positions of the countries that support them,” he said.

For his part, legislator Mesbah Ouhaida called on the people not to vote for any of those presidential candidates because “they renounced national sovereignty.”

The director of the Arab-European Center for Human Rights and International Law, Ramadan Bin Zir, also questioned the meeting because it represented “a violation of diplomatic norms.”

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