Reports

Erdoğan retreating after Sisi's warning on Libya

Wednesday 24/June/2020 - 02:58 PM

Ahmed Adel

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan keeps supporting the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) by sending military advisors, arms and mercenaries from northern Syria to it.

The mercenaries have already signed contracts to fight alongside the militias of the GNA for the next six months. Turkey has also promised to give them its citizenship, once fighting in Libya ends.

Erdoğan is apparently afraid to send regular Turkish troops or officers to the battlefield in Libya. Instead, he sends the Syrian hirelings, a cheap option for him, especially with the prospects of a direct confrontation with the Egyptian army looming on the horizon.

Turkey backpedalling

Erdoğan started falling back after Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on June 20 that his country might find itself obliged to intervene militarily in Libya, if the Turkey-backed GNA attacked the central cities of Sirte and al-Kufra.

Sisi added as he toured a military base near Egypt's joint border with Libya that the two cities would be redlines that should not be crossed by the GNA's militias and Syrian mercenaries, or the Egyptian army would be obliged to get involved in fighting.

"An Egyptian intervention in Libya now has all legitimate grounds," President Sisi said.

Redline

The Egyptian president also called for imposing a ceasefire in Libya in preparation for bringing Libya's warring rivals to the negotiating table.

Erdoğan has been trying to increase his country's influence in the East Mediterranean, using Islamist movements. These movements share an ideological background with the Turkish president. They ease the implementation of his agenda in the region.

However, the collapse of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria and Sudan has dealt a painful blow to the ambitions of the Turkish president in the region. This is why Libya is probably a last ditch attempt for reviving his regional ambitions.