Turkey has criticized the Arab League's silence over the continued attack by the retired Major General Khalifa Haftar's forces on the Libyan capital, Tripoli, since the fourth of last April.

The Arab League had called yesterday - at the conclusion of an emergency meeting chaired by Iraq at the ambassadorial level - to "prevent foreign interference in Libya," while the Libyan delegate considered that the League was assigned double standards and threatened to withdraw his country from it.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the Arab League - and contrary to the political agreements and the Security Council resolution - remained silent in the face of the attacks of Haftar's forces, supported by external forces, on Tripoli, in addition to that it did not support international legitimacy.

She added that the university referred in its closing statement yesterday to the Skhirat Agreement and to the political solution, as it is the only guarantee to ensure stability in Libya, noting that Ankara has emphasized from the outset the need to stop the attacks in order to reach a political solution and that it is playing an active and constructive role in the Berlin conference.

A new step


On the other hand, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said yesterday that his country is about to take a new step in Libya and the eastern Mediterranean, expressing his hope that success will be the ally of the Turkish soldiers in 2020 as it was in 2019.

Turkish Minister of Energy and Natural Resources Fatih Donmez confirmed, Tuesday, that the licensing procedures for exploration related to the areas of maritime jurisdiction specified according to the recent agreement with Libya, will start quickly, in the coming months.

On the other hand, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, renewed the League’s position, as he confirmed - according to what an official source quoted - that what he called “non-Arab military interventions” in the Libyan lands remain totally rejected by the Arab countries.

He said that the decision issued by the university on Tuesday regarding developments in Libya reflects an Arab position rejecting interventions that exacerbate crises, complicate them and prolong them, he said.

For his part, a member of the Libyan House of Representatives, Muhammad Al-Raeed, said that everyone was waiting for decisions and statements of condemnation from the Arab League for what he described as the aggression launched by Haftar's forces against Tripoli, after nine months of war.

He added that Haftar's forces are launching their attack on the Libyan capital with the support of some Arab countries that are trying to impose a dictatorial military regime in Libya, while they themselves are trying to obstruct the agreements signed between the Government of National Accord and Turkey.

Foreign Interventions


The Arab League confirmed yesterday - in an extraordinary session entitled "The situation in Libya" - rejecting and preventing foreign interventions that contribute to facilitating the transfer of what they called extremist fighters to Libya, as well as violating international resolutions on the embargo on the supply of weapons, which threatens the security of countries The Libyan neighborhood and the region.

The Council stressed the danger of violating the Libyan political agreement in a way that allows foreign military interventions, and also stressed support for the political process of the Skhirat Agreement as it is the only reference for the settlement in Libya, and the importance of involving neighboring countries in the solution.

During the meeting, Libya’s representative to the Arab League, Ambassador Saleh al-Shammakhi, said that “the double standard of the League pushes us to seriously consider the feasibility of staying under its umbrella,” considering that the current position of the League is the result of interventions and pressures by “countries that support the aggression against Tripoli.”

The Arab League statement comes after the signing of two agreements in late November between the Government of National Accord and Turkey, whereby the military agreement provides for the possibility of providing Turkish military assistance to confront Haftar's forces, and the second agreement provides for the demarcation of the maritime border between Turkey and Libya.