Speaker of the Libyan House of Deputies (parliament), which is based in the northeastern port city of Tobruk, Agila Saleh, has alluded to the possibility of inviting the Egyptian army to directly intervene in Libya.

“We will do this if Turkey makes a full deployment of its troops in our country,” Saleh said on January 12 in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

In a gesture of major symbolism, Saleh, 75 and the speaker of the Tobruk-based legislature since August 2014, co-presided over a session of the Egyptian parliament.

He said Egyptian state institutions had been actively working to find a solution to the crisis in Libya since the North African state descended into chaos after the downfall of the Muammar Gaddafi regime in 2011.

Fears

Egypt, Libya’s eastern neighbor, has become a main party to the crisis in the country, given the huge impact the unrest in the North African state is having on Egypt’s security.

Egypt, which battles a branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in Sinai, has stood at the receiving end of the smuggling of arms and militants from Libya.

This is why it throws its full weight behind the Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls most of eastern, southern, and central Libya and is now in a new drive to control Libyan capital Tripoli and the northern city of Misrata.

Turkey

Saleh’s allusion that his parliament might invite Egypt to directly intervene in Libya comes a short time after Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, declared that his country had already sent troops to Libya, in the light of a security cooperation memo signed with the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord in late November last year.

The reality is, however, that most of those sent to Libya by Mr. Erdogan were Syrian mercenaries, some of them arrested by the LNA.

Turkey also signed another memo with the GNA for the delimitation of maritime boundaries between Turkey and Libya, even as the two states do not share maritime boundaries.

A ceasefire sponsored by Russia and Turkey started coming into effect from the early hours of January 12.

Nevertheless, the LNA sticks to the areas it liberated from GNA control in the past days, including the northern city of Sirte. It is not known whether the LNA will go back to the pre-April 2019 lines as the GNA demands as a condition for maintaining the ceasefire.

Alarm

In Egypt, preparations are in full swing for any emergency on the joint border with Libya or in the Mediterranean Sea.

The Egyptian army is now conducting a full-scale drill, codenamed ‘Qadir 2020’. The training brings together all divisions of the Egyptian army. It also includes a rare amphibious landing along the Mediterranean coast. This is latest in a series of military drills Egypt is conducting intending to raise the level of preparedness among its troops for any emergency, especially from Libya.

Egyptian parliament Speaker, Ali Abdel A’al, was probably very clear on the length his country is willing to go to defend its security against what is happening in Libya and Turkish involvement in the country.

Political solution

Abdel A’al said his country does not prioritize military solutions over political solutions.

“Nonetheless, Egypt has a power to demonstrate if its national security is threatened,” Abdel A’al said.

Egypt, he noted, repeatedly warned against applying military solutions to the crises in Syria and Libya.

He said his parliament had previously invited all parties to the Libyan crisis to meet in Cairo and find a negotiated settlement to the conflict in their country.

Abdel A’al lashed out at GNA Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj for signing the security cooperation and maritime boundary delimitation memos with Turkey.

“These memos are a flagrant violation of international law and the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council,” Abdel A’al said.

L'articolo Libya Parliament Speaker says Country may Invoke Direct Egyptian Intervention proviene da InsideOver.

The previous week, President Erdogan announced his plan to send Turkish troops to Libya. The necessary legitimation of the Turkish parliament now exists and with potentially even more fragility in the region.

The plan was mandated on Thursday. As a result, Turkish troops can be deployed into Libya. Moreover, the law passed not merely focusses on Libya but displays Turkey’s geopolitical vision for the region and years to come, as the parliament’s mandate ought to protect Turkish interests “throughout North Africa and the Mediterranean.”

It is evidence of Turkish newly found self-esteem on the international stage under Erdogan. Self-esteem that involves the interests of Turkey far beyond its borders, such as in Libya now. And Turkey is willing to protect these interests militarily.

Turkey’s short-term primary geostrategic goals are to support Fayez al-Sarraj’s Libyan government. As always, in international politics, not out of unselfish reasons but in favor of a quid pro quo. Libya itself, therefore, is only a side-show in Turkey’s goal, which is to have a say in the Eastern Mediterranean, where Greece, Cyprus, Israel, and Egypt exclude Turkey from the exploitation of natural gas fields under the seabed. Al-Sarraj supports Turkey in its quest. As a result, an agreement from November between Turkey and the unitary government in Libya declares large parts of the area’s waters without regard to claims by Greece and Cyprus as Turkish sovereign territories.

Nonetheless, with Turkey’s decision to intervene, it risks further international isolation. So far, there are no implications that the neighboring actors may be ready to speak to Erdogan about splitting the gas reserves.

However, it is not merely isolation that Turkey faces. The other actors involved will not simply succumb to Turkey’s plans. Particularly Russia’s interests are diametrically opposed to Turkey’s, as Moscow supports al-Sarraj’s opponent, General Haftar, with mercenaries. Next Wednesday, President Putin will travel to Turkey and speak to Erdogan personally about the current developments.

Moreover, General Khalifa Haftar, who seeks to become the military ruler over all of Libya, has other powerful allies such as the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, who probably will not hesitate to equip Haftar with additional weapons and mercenaries if a Turkish intervention showed an immediate effect.

Greece and Egypt also plan to conduct joint naval exercises off the coast of Libya in the coming days. The Egyptian Air Force has moreover been on alert over the past week and is believed to have prevented several Turkish aircraft from flying into Libyan airspace. Meanwhile, Israel has communicated its plans to conduct exercises in the Mediterranean.

Europe, in the form of France, also has an interest in the conflict. French soldiers have been stationed in the Haftar-controlled area in Eastern Libya since 2014 when Haftar began his plans to liberate the cities of Benghazi and Derna, occupied by al-Qaida and the Islamic State terrorist militia. Meanwhile, Turkey’s plans also undermine Germany, which is planning a peace conference for Libya at the end of January.

Despite the ubiquitous criticism, Erdogan has proceeded with his plan. Turkey could emerge as one of the big winners from the crises in the Arab world and the procrastination of Europe. After all, Erdogan has been stating his neo-Ottoman fantasies openly and building a stronghold in the region while creating further instability can work in Ankara’s favor. In fact, Libya had once belonged to the Ottoman Empire until 1912, as had the Greek archipelago of the Dodecanese. The latter, if the maritime agreement between Libya and Turkey would become a reality, would in future be part of a “Turkish Sea.”

Nonetheless, Turkey is playing a risky game for its journey back in time as none of the countries involved in the conflict will stand by when Turkey attempts to make the al-Sarraj government, the winner in the Libyan civil war. If their intervention resulted in an escalating fiasco, both the economic interests and the geographical ones would fail, and Turkey would be forced to retreat, humiliated by reality.

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The Arab League has denounced approval by the Turkish parliament of a bill that allows Ankara to send troops to Libya.

In a statement on December 2, the pan-Arab organization said it would continue to offer backing to the political process in Libya on the road to a negotiated settlement to its crisis.

“The Arab League underscores the importance of stopping foreign interference in Libyan affairs,” the league said.

Turkish troop deployment

The statement came only hours after the Turkish parliament approved the bill, which was submitted by Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In his letter to the Turkish parliament, Erodgan said the deployment of Turkish troops in Libya would protect Turkish interests in North Africa and offer support to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA).

The expected troop deployment came in the light of a security cooperation deal the GNA signed with Ankara on November 28. This was one of two deals which also included another on the delimitation of maritime boundaries between Turkey and Libya.

Erdogan said the security cooperation pact allows his country to send troops to Libya at the request of the GNA. The GNA requested Turkish military support on December 19.

Escalation of tensions

Turkey’s deployment of troops in Libya will exacerbate tensions in North Africa and in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

Libya now has a fully-fledged civil war, in which Islamist militias affiliated to the GNA and backed by Turkey are pitted against the Libyan National Army (LNA), which contains some of the military commanders that served under the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The LNA controls almost three-quarters of Libya, including the country’s eastern part, its south and some parts of western Libya.

The GNA is locked in Tripoli, some parts of Misurata and some parts of western Libya.

The LNA is now marching towards Tripoli and has succeeded in overrunning some of the districts of the Libyan capital. It wants to significantly reverse the military situation in Libya before Erdogan can send any formidable military support to the GNA and its Islamist militias.

Opposition

By deploying its troops in Libya, Turkey will be part of this civil war, but it will be there to back one party, namely the GNA, against the other: the LNA.

Some of the Turkish lawmakers who debated Erdogan’s troop deployment request on December 2 expressed fears from this.

One of these lawmakers even asked about why Turkish troops would be sent to fight in the deserts of Libya.

There is also regional opposition to Turkish military presence in Libya, including from Egypt, Greece and Cyprus which see in the planned Turkish troop deployment an increasing of tensions in the region.

Arab League

The Arab League’s December 2 condemnation of the Turkish parliament’s approval of the expected Turkish troop deployment came only days after the league called for preventing foreign interference in Libyan affairs.

At an emergency meeting at the league headquarters in Cairo on December 31, the league said foreign interference in Libyan affairs would ease the relocation of extremists and terrorists from some conflict zones, including Syria, to Libya.

It expressed concern about what it described as “military escalation” in Libya.

“This escalation makes the Libyan crisis worse and threatens the security of Libya’s neighboring countries,” it added.

Limits

On December 2, the Libyan parliament, which is based in the northeastern Libyan city of Tobruk, called on the league to ask its member states to activate a 1950 common defense pact between Arab states.

Nevertheless, the league’s ability to take action in this regard is very limited, given rifts among Arab states on what is happening in Libya, analysts said.

The league has 22 member states, but these states do not share the same view on developments in Libya, they added.

“Some of the states inherently back Turkey, like in the case of Qatar,” said Libyan affairs specialist, Abdel Sattar Heteita. “Other states support opposing parties in the conflict.”

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