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Berlin / Brussels (dpa) - Turkey has forced the abandonment of a deployment of German marines to control the UN arms embargo against Libya.

According to the operational command, the German soldiers boarded a suspicious Turkish cargo ship in the Mediterranean on Sunday to check the cargo.

A little later, however, Turkey, as the flag state, vetoed the search of the ship.

The German soldiers then had to cancel the mission.

According to the Federal Ministry of Defense, “no prohibited goods were found on board this freighter” until the investigation was abandoned.

A spokesman for the ministry said on Monday in Berlin that the soldiers roped down to the ship by helicopter about 200 kilometers north of the city of Benghazi after the flag state of Turkey had not objected to the search within four hours.

He emphasized that the decision to search the freighter was not made on the German frigate, but by the operations management in Rome.

Since there was initially no contradiction, "procedurally everything went smoothly here," said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office.

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Since August Germany has been participating in the EU operation Irini with the frigate "Hamburg" to control the Libya embargo.

In addition to weapons, the use is also intended to prevent the smuggling of oil and fuel.

Civil war has raged in Libya since the overthrow of long-term ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi in 2011.

The government troops are supported by Turkey, their opponent, General Khalifa Haftar, Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Russia.

Most recently, the conflicting parties agreed on a ceasefire at the end of October.

Government spokesman Steffen Seibert said Germany, Great Britain, Italy and France support the ongoing Libyan dialogue forum.

It is good that there is now a roadmap to elections in December 2021.

This is an important step to «re-establish Libya's sovereignty».

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201123-99-433191 / 3

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UN report (Final report of the Panel of Experts on Libya established pursuant to Security Council resolution 1973)

Tweet of the Bundeswehr