Turkey says Libya risks ‘sliding into chaos’
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, whose country is preparing for troop deployment to Libya, says the prolongation of the Libyan conflict could plunge the North African country into “chaos” and turn it into another Syria.
“If today Libya becomes like Syria, then the turn will come for the other countries in the region,” Cavusoglu said at a meeting of the governing AK Party in the capital, Ankara, on Saturday.
“We need to do whatever is needed to prevent Libya from being divided and sliding into chaos, and that is what we are doing. It is the legitimate government there that we deal with,” he added, stressing Turkey’s commitment to agreements signed with Libya’s internationally-recognized government last month.
The accords — one on security and military cooperation and another on maritime boundaries in the eastern Mediterranean — were inked on November 27 and granted Ankara the right to deploy troops to Libya if asked by Tripoli.
On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Ankara had received that request and that the Turkish parliament would soon authorize the dispatch of troops to Libya.
The Libyan government has been fighting an offensive by militia under the command of renegade General Khalifa Haftar near the capital for nine months.
Haftar’s forces have previously seized and searched a Turkish vessel, suspecting that it was carrying weapons for the UN-backed government. They released the ship afterwards, however.
Libya was wracked by chaos in 2011, when a popular uprising and a NATO intervention led to the ouster of long-time dictator Muammar Gaddafi and his execution by unruly fighters.
The Libyan government has been attempting to establish order.
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