Turkish President President Tayyip Erdogan
ISTANBUL, Dec 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey is ready to provide Tripoli any military support it needs after Ankara and Libya’s internationally recognised government signed a security deal.
“We will be protecting the rights of Libya and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean,” he said on A Haber TV. “We are more than ready to give whatever support necessary to Libya.”
Khalifa Haftar, who leads forces in eastern Libya, “is not a legitimate leader…and is representative of an illegal structure,” Erdogan said after meeting in Istanbul with Fayez al-Sarraj, prime minister of Libya’s Government of National Accord.
The threat of a military clash in the Mediterranean has drawn nearer following talks in which Turkey has underlined its willingness to send troops to Libya to defend the country’s UN-recognised government.
Such a move would risk a direct military confrontation with General Khalifa Haftar, the eastern Libyan military warlord who is thought to be planning a decisive assault on the government of national accord in Tripoli, or GNA. Either the UAE or Egypt, which are supporting Haftar’s forces, might also become involved.
Turkey, already at loggerheads with the US Congress and EU on multiple fronts, signed a military co-operation agreement with GNA that enables it to request troops from Turkey. The agreement, sent to the Turkish parliament on Saturday, provides for a so-called quick reaction force for police and military in Libya, as well as enhanced cooperation on intelligence and defence.
Turkish support for the GNA government led by Fayez al Serraj has until now been limited to drones and armaments, and it would be a major escalation to send ground troops to defend Tripoli.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and its defence minister, Hulusi Akar met with Serraj on the sidelines of a major diplomatic conference in Doha, Qatar at the weekend.
Çavuşoğlu, speaking in Doha, said no formal request for troops has yet been made by the GNA, but added “sending troops is the easiest way”.
Haftar’s airforce, backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, has already bombed the airport of the Libyan coastal town of Misrata in a warning to Turkey not to send troops or further supplies.
Turkey, along with the UAE, was formally found by the UN to be breaking the UN arms embargo, but the Turkish government seems determined not to let Tripoli to fall into hands of the UAE-backed Haftar.
Haftar claims to be removing Islamist terrorists from Tripoli. His opponents describe him as a war criminal who will snuff out any chance of democracy in Libya.
Haftar’s assault was launched in April, but until now has been bogged down in the suburbs of the capital.
The already multi-layered conflict has been made more complex by the arrival of 200 Russian mercenaries backing Haftar, an intervention that Serraj is highlighting to drum up support for his government in Washington.
Serraj met the the influential Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a confidante of president Donald Trump, on the sidelines of the Doha conference to warn about Russian intervention. The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has also urged Putin to order the troops to withdraw.
As part of a binding together of Turkey and the Tripoli government, the two sides have also drawn up a memorandum of understanding to carve out drilling rights in the Mediterranean that has infuriated the European Union, and in particular Greece. Athens says the exclusive economic zone agreement in effect blocks Greece from drilling around Crete and is illegal.
It has already expelled the Libyan ambassador to Greece but not yet broken off diplomatic relations. — NNN-AGENCIES
