Turkey yesterday urged an “immediate” end to the support for rebel commander Khalifa Haftar in Libya after trilateral talks held in Ankara between Libyan, Maltese and Turkish officials.
Turkey earlier this year stepped up its support for the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) after Haftar launched an offensive in April 2019 to seize the capital.
Libya has been entrenched in chaos since the 2011 overthrow of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi with rival political and armed groups battling for control.
“It is essential that all kind of help and support given to putschist Haftar, which prohibits ensuring Libya’s peace, tranquillity, security and territorial integrity, ends immediately,” Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.
His comments came after a meeting with the interior ministers of Libya and Malta at the defence ministry in the Turkish capital.
Haftar’s backers should “stop supporting an unrealistic and wrong project,” GNA Interior Minister Fathi Bashaga said, according to a Turkish defence ministry translation.
“The international community should prioritise the preservation of a united Libya,” Malta’s Interior Minister Byron Camilleri said, joined by Akar and Bashaga.
After the GNA signed security and maritime agreements with Turkey last year, Ankara’s military support including drones helped it re-impose control over Libya’s northwest.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas has provided more details on potential EU sanctions in response to violations of the UN embargo on arms flowing into Libya, DPA reported. Sanctions could be put on “all companies, persons and also entities” who were involved in breaching the embargo, Maas said during a visit to Estonia yesterday. “We know that material as well as mercenaries were frequently brought to Libya on chartered ships and flights,” Maas said.
In a second step, sanctions could target the states who provide the arms and mercenaries.
At the latest Libya summit in January, the countries party to the conflict had agreed to adhere to the arms embargo, though the summit document has not been implemented so far.
This weekend, Germany, France and Italy for the first time threatened sanctions to enforce the embargo, which has been in place for nine years with repeated violations.
“We are prepared to consider a possible use of sanctions if infringements against the land, sea and air embargo continue,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte wrote in a joint statement on Saturday.
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi and US President Donald Trump agreed yesterday on the need to maintain a ceasefire in Libya and avoid an escalation between the forces fighting there, Egypt’s presidency said, Reuters reported.
Later, US President Trump spoke yesterday with French President Emmanuel Macron on ways to de-escalate the situation in Libya, the White House said in a statement.