BENGHAZI, Libya: Libya's eastern parliament said on Wednesday it was cancelling an agreement to unify the country's National Oil Corporation (NOC), a day after eastern forces recaptured major oil ports from a rival faction.

The statement from the parliament's energy committee urged the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) to hand over the ports of Es Sider and Ras Lanuf as soon as it had fully secured them, without saying who they should be handed to.

When the LNA originally took over Es Sider, Ras Lanuf and two other terminals in Libya's Oil Crescent in September, it handed them to the NOC in Tripoli.

A breakaway NOC office aligned with Libya's eastern government and the LNA is based in Benghazi, though its efforts to manage oil operations independently have been blocked by international sanctions that remain in place.