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Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar warned on Sunday that his country would regard the forces of Libyan army commander Khalifa Haftar and his supporters in Libya as “legitimate targets” if they tried to attack Turkish forces in the region.
The Turkish minister’s threat came hours after a visit to Tripoli, which the Libyan interim government called a war drum beat.
Hulusi Akar attends the graduation of a group of Al-Wefaq government forces in Libya
Akar added that Haftar’s forces and his supporters “will have nowhere to run” if they attack Turkish forces, and said Turkey will attack them “everywhere,” as he himself put it.
For its part, the Libyan National Army condemned the visit of Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar to Libya and considered it a message of reassurance that Ankara sends to the Government of National Accord and the Brotherhood stating that it will support them in the next stage.
Khalifa haftar
Akar’s remarks came 3 days after Haftar said his forces are “preparing to expel the occupier with faith, will and arms,” referring to Turkish forces working to support the Libyan Government of National Accord.
Turkey is the main external supporter of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord of Libya, which has fought with Haftar’s Libyan National Army for years.
In October, the Government of National Accord and the Libyan National Army signed a ceasefire agreement, and the United Nations is pushing for a political dialogue, with the aim of holding elections next year to resolve the crisis.
This comes as the Al-Arabiya correspondent reported the arrival of an Egyptian political and security delegation on Sunday to the Libyan capital Tripoli on an unannounced visit.
The Egyptian delegation includes the Deputy Head of the General Intelligence Service, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and several officials of the Egyptian government.
This visit is the first of its kind by a senior Egyptian official to the Libyan capital since 2014, and comes a week after the visit of Egypt’s Chief of General Intelligence, Major General Abbas Kamel, to the city of Benghazi, and his meeting with the Libyan army commander Khalifa Haftar and the speaker of parliament, Aqila Saleh, and days after an Egyptian-Libyan meeting. In Cairo, between the National Committee for the Libyan Crisis and 75 people from southern Libya, as well as hours after the visit of the Turkish Defense Minister to the capital, Tripoli.
