ANKARA – The Turkish leader approved earlier in the day the memorandum onmilitary cooperation with the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA),recently ratified by the Turkish parliament. Erdogan has said that Turkeymay send its troops to Libya if the GNA makes such a request, Sputnik hasreported.
Russia condemns any interference in Libya’s internal affairs by an outsidepower but welcomes attempts to help resolve the crisis in the north Africancountry, the Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told themedia on Thursday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday that he intended tosubmit to the country’s parliament a request for using the Turkish armedforces in Libya.
“We are asked whether we will send military to Libya. I will answer: wewill go where we are invited to. The memorandum has once again confirmedour cooperation and support. This agreement has entered into force today.We will soon submit a request to the parliament for using our army inLibya. With this mandate we have more possibilities to provide support toLibya”, Erdogan said in an address for the heads of the regionaldepartments of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party.
On Wednesday, President Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Tunisia for talkswith his Tunisian counterpart Kais Saied. Speaking to the press after thetalks, Erdogan stated that Ankara is still ready to consider thepossibility of sending troops to Libya upon a request by the UN-backedGovernment of National Accord (GNA).
In November, Ankara and Tripoli signed a memorandum on maritime boundariesin the Mediterranean Sea, in a move that drew the ire of Greece, Cyprus,and Egypt, while the Tobruk-based Libyan parliament decried the document asillegal.
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Libya has been engulfed in a political crisis after the 2011 coup whichresulted in the ouster of the country’s leader Muammar Gaddafi.
Two rival administrations have since practically turned the oil-richcountry into a duopoly, with the Libyan National Army (LNA) controlling theeast and the GNA controlling the west. The country’s south, however, hasrecently begun attracting runaway terrorists from Syria and Iraq.
The situation has escalated over the past several weeks as the LNA’scommander announced an offensive on the GNA-held capital of Tripoli. Thecity had already been a battleground for a similar attack in April, inwhich hundreds of people were killed and thousands more injured.
