MediaPart: Accusing the Turks of interfering in Libya is hypocrisy .. France has sought to cover up diplomatically on the criticism leveled against it and the Emirates

In the second part of the series "From Syria to Libya ..", the French Mediapart website said that Libya, the oil country torn by war since 2011, is gradually turning into "a second Syria", and that blaming Turkish intervention is hypocritical Because what has fueled the war is the support provided by the other powers of retired Major General Khalifa Hifter.

The article, edited by the writers Nicolas Chevron and Rachida Al-Azouzi, started from the end of the story when Turkey a year ago extended a hand and the National Accord government, the only recognized authority by the United Nations in Libya, broke the Siege of Tripoli.

The article considers that it is this Turkish support that allowed the reconciliation government today to advance toward the stronghold of Haftar, its opponent in eastern Libya who is often referred to as the "strongman" in the country, and who led in April 2019 a military attack on the capital, Tripoli, and flooded the country again In a third civil war it undermined the arduous peace process.

The authors considered that Turkey's interference in Libya, and if the Turkish opposition itself described it as being involved in a country divided into two parts and that its purpose is ideological, then Turkey sees it above all as a guarantee to recover its debts, and participation in the reconstruction of Libya, which was attracting hundreds of companies and tens of thousands of Turkish workers Before the fall of the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

In this context, the article pointed out that Ankara, by signing on November 27 the border demarcation agreement between the Turkish and Libyan continental shelf, found an argument for demanding oil and gas wealth in the eastern Mediterranean, contesting Cyprus, which angered Europe, especially France, which denounced what it considered Violation of Greek and Cypriot sovereignty.

Strength position

The article reviewed the events that followed the siege of Haftar to Tripoli in the spring of 2019 with the support of Egypt, the Emirates, Russia and France, with the appearance of Turkish drones and the battles that led to the failure of the Haftar attack, as well as the accusations leveled against the Turks to bring in mercenaries from Syria and Yemen to fight in Libya.

Currently, Al-Wefaq government forces find themselves in a strong position in front of the city of Sirte, where 60% of Libyan oil exports pass, and in front of the Al-Jafra airbase, whose location allows air control throughout the country, and it does not hide its goal of seizing, in cooperation with Ankara, the These two goals, before returning to the Skhirat agreement and entering negotiations with Benghazi.

In this situation - as the authors point out - Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has threatened since last June 20 that his army, which is one of the largest in the region, is ready to intervene directly in the event of the attack on Sirte and Jafra, and he received the approval of his parliament, and demanded the Tobruk parliament Haftar's loyalists intervened to "protect national security" for the two countries in the event of an "imminent threat."

But Ankara, which is active in negotiating a ceasefire in Libya with the Russians who continue to arm Haftar and form a force on the ground, appears to be not afraid of a direct confrontation with Egypt, especially since the Egyptian army has focused, since Sisi’s coup, most of its activity on controlling his country, And many other restrictions prevent him from heading towards a full-scale war in Libya, says geopolitical expert Bora Bacter of Kultur University in Istanbul.

Specialists in the Middle East point to the important consensus between the United States, which sees the presence of 14 Russian combat aircraft on the bases of Haftar as a greater danger than Turkish interference in Libya, and to the European division and the willingness of the Russians to leave the field open to the government of national reconciliation in Jufra, after the press reported the departure of mercenaries The Wagner Company linked to the Kremlin that region.

The article reviewed a series of air strikes in early July, which he said had destroyed Turkish defense and electronic jamming systems at the Al-Wattia base, less than 24 hours after Turkish Defense Minister Khulsi Akar visited Tripoli and announced that "Turkey will never leave Libya again."

This attack, whose perpetrators have not been clearly identified, "can be considered a test of the capacity of the Turkish air defense system in Libya, and its failure exposes Ankara's weakness in the region," said former officer Matin Gorkan. He also explains that the war of mediators in Libya can quickly and out of control turn to Conventional military confrontation. "

Turkey and Russia

Other analysts point to the danger of the victory of the National Accord government and Ankara, as an article published by the Brookings Institution finds that "Turkey's self-confidence may turn into miscalculation if the Haftar supporters abandon their goal of controlling the entire country and focus on crystallizing autonomy in the east."

The institute's article warned that "even a potential Russian-Turkish deal could at best lead to a de facto partition of Libya, and thus the conflict will expand domestically, with coalitions fragmented and power and resources contested by militias at the local level."

The authors pointed out that Turkey, by imposing itself in western Libya, with the tacit approval of the Americans, has become an important force that cannot be ignored in the event of mediation or in the event of war, as well as Russia, which supports the Haftar camp.

The article saw that Turkey and Russia together began marginalizing the helpless Europeans, and changing the balance of powers on the ground, as well as the strategic and diplomatic balance between the two camps they allied with, as they proved in Libya as well as in Syria that they can be rivals and partners in the same political-military scene.

But Turkey - according to the authors - is the focus of international anger, and is subject to criticism from Europe, especially from France, which entered with it in a diplomatic confrontation. French President Emmanuel Macron accused Turkey of assuming "historical and criminal responsibility" in the Libyan conflict, and even went as far as to question Membership in Ankara in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

"The speech of French President Emmanuel Macron and a large part of the French media raises concern, as the Turks make the new threat, while the role of the UAE or France in Libya was more," said former diplomat in Tripoli, Patrick Heimsade, who works as a consultant to the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue in Geneva. Toxicity with much arming Hifter. "

“Before the intervention of the Turks, there was the UAE’s intervention, which organized more than a thousand raids between April and December 2019 to support Haftar and his army, but no one talks about that in France because the UAE is our friend,” France’s researcher Jalil al-Hashawi added. Not to criticize the UAE or Hifter. "

Global duplication

The researcher Hosni Abidi notes that more than 20 foreign countries, starting with France, are involved to varying degrees in Libya, "for the sole purpose of serving their own interests," noting that the effects of these foreign powers stand in the face of peace by "highlighting internal divisions and building local parties" Creating new alliances for it, and sabotaging all Libyan and international political initiatives. "

The authors pointed out that Haftar did not launch his military attack on Tripoli alone 15 months ago, but did so with political and military support from the largest foreign powers such as Egypt, the Emirates and Russia that supplied him with arms and mercenaries, and even France that continues to defend him and which bears great responsibility in the Libyan quagmire since the war The adventure launched by former President Nicolas Sarkozy in 2011.

The two authors pointed out that France was one of the first to protect and protect him in secret and help Haftar without formally recognizing his army, while maintaining an official channel of communication with the Government of National Accord.

In the face of a lot of duplication on the part of the external parties, and the size of the division within the Security Council, as the authors see, UN envoy Ghassan Salameh resigned, saying, "I've never seen such a big gap between what we say and what we do, as I see in Libya."

The least that is said, according to Salameh, is that he was "stabbed in the back by most members of the Security Council," and explained, "I had no role anymore because on the day he attacked Tripoli, Haftar got the support of most of them, while we were criticized in Libya for not stopping it."

"Libya's blame for intervention is largely hypocrisy, when we know that this entire war was made possible by the support of the other powers involved for Haftar, and it is support that has never been questioned," said another specialist in Libya, Wolfram.

The authors concluded that it was Turkish interventions that brought back the diplomatic dynamic that had collapsed since April 2019, brought Westerners back to the table, and forced Europeans to commit, as was the case in the Berlin conference in January.