Fathi Bashaga (photo Ansa)

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by Leonardo Sgura June 14, 2020 The tweet is from the Minister of the Interior, Fathi Bashaga. But it must be a path of peace, says Bashaga, which gives the country a political structure respectful of the popular will, with Tripoli as its capital.

It is a signal that comes after seven days of harsh statements with which the entire Tripoli government, together with its ally Turkey, has rejected the proposed truce launched by Egypt, saying that it is ready to reconquer the country and annihilate the enemy Khalifa Haftar .

Words published on the day when Pope Francis shouts his "pain" for the war in Libya and prays for "international organizations and those with political and military responsibilities" to work to give peace, stability and unity of the country.

The summit scheduled in Istanbul between the Foreign and Defense Ministers of Russia and Turkey was canceled today. Confrontation around which the attention of international diplomacies was concentrated, which consider the attitude of Moscow and Ankara to be decisive at this stage. The two countries are allies elsewhere, but enemies in Libya: Erdogan, with the help of Qatar, sent troops in defense of Fayez Al Serraji, Putin, together with Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, offers less formal support, but no less concrete, to Cyrenaica. But Russia and Turkey don't want to fight each other. Already in January, the impulse, supported by Ankara, for the first agreement on the ceasefire had come from Moscow. Serraji and Haftar accepted and a few weeks later attended the Berlin Conference, then starting peace talks with the UN mediation in Geneva.

All jumped, in February, to the profound divisions over the control of the territory, the armed forces and oil resources during the transition which, according to the plans, should lead to free elections and democratic institutions in the future. Since then, fighting has continued, with Sirte's oil terminals ended up in Haftar and crude oil production paralyzed by tribes loyal to the general of Cyrenaica.

But the military power deployed by Ankara, accompanied by the sudden withdrawal of the LNA, allowed Tripoli to go on the counter-offensive and regain part of the lost territories between April and May. However, just as the new war balances would suggest stopping weapons and promoting dialogue, Erdogan seems to want to go all the way and take root in Libya, ignoring the solution arrived from Egypt, which tracing the 2015 Schirat agreements proposes: immediate cessation fire, withdrawal of all foreign forces, free elections and new democratic institutions for a single Libya, but administratively divided into Fezzan, Tripolitania and Cyrenaica.

The Cairo declaration, prompted by President Al Sisi and accepted by Haftar, immediately received the approval of the United States, Russia, Greece, Italy, France, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates. Rejected, however, by Tripoli and Ankara. And after the no to truce, Turkey would even intend to build two military bases in Libya, one airborne in Al Watiya, the other naval in Misrata. Thus openly challenging the UN embargo on arms. Ankara has sent seven military ships off the Libyan coast to protect its freighters unloading vehicles and men on the docks of Misrata, practically under the helpless eyes of the European naval units of the Irini mission, decided by Brussels precisely to guarantee compliance with the embargo .

France today has threatened to intervene. The Elysée asked the partners of the Atlantic Alliance the question: “We will not let it go. Turkey's increasingly aggressive and assertive policy is unacceptable, they are exploiting NATO. "

In the past 48 hours, reports of armed combat have given way to mutual war crimes charges. Tripoli continues to denounce mass graves discovered in Tarhouna , where - according to the GNA - women and children were also buried alive. Today on unofficial social media they broadcast a video documenting the mistreatment of a group of Egyptian workers arrested by the GNA militants on charges of being actually mercenaries in the service of Khalifa Haftar.