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According to information from SPIEGEL, the Ankara government prevented the Bundeswehr from searching a suspicious Turkish freighter at the last minute. The Turkish freighter “Rosaline A” was detained on Sunday some 200 kilometers north of the city of Benghazi, in eastern Libya, by the German frigate “Hamburg” because the EU-led mission “Irini” had indications that the weapons were illegal for the Libyan on board. Civil war smuggling.
What at first seems like a routine mission resulted in a scandal. Turkey protested just hours after German soldiers tasked with the EU to curb illegal arms smuggling into Libya boarded the ship late in the afternoon. Specifically, Ankara informed the EU mission that the check would not be approved.
Due to Ankara’s refusal, German soldiers had to stop checking the cargo immediately and disembarked at dawn on Monday. The “Rosaline A” was able to continue her journey to Libya. According to the plan, the container ship should now call at Misrata.
The incident shows once again how difficult it is to stop the smuggling of weapons into Libya. Turkey does not hide the direct support of the internationally recognized government in Tripoli and sends arms and mercenaries with ships and planes. Operation Irini, however, is quite powerless without Ankara’s cooperation.
The Bundeswehr had already stopped a cargo ship bound for Libya in the summer. The suspicion of arms smuggling was quickly confirmed at the time, as the freighter had a special type of kerosene on board that is only used for fighter jets.
