Kouloughlis: Turkey’s bridge to intervention in Libya

Sarah Rashad

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s speech at the end of 2019 justifying his country’s intervention in Libya due to the presence of a million Turks there who need Ankara’s help casts a shadow over the Libyan scene.

Ankara evoking the card of Libyans of Turkish origin to justify its intervention in Libya is not something new, but rather an old trick that Turkey resorts to whenever the need arises.

The first political stations of Libyans with Turkish origins date back to 2011, particularly with the arrival of the Arab Spring waves to Libya. Racist tones flared up at that time, distinguishing those coming from Turkish origins, known as Kouloughlis, from their Arab counterparts.

This matter worsened when the Kouloughlis stood at the forefront of the militias that fought the regime of the late President Muammar Gaddafi.

According to Libyan politicians, the role of the Kouloughlis in 2011 was neither arbitrary nor coincidental, as they expected Turkey to contribute to mobilizing these groups in order to carry out its project by displacing Gaddafi and controlling Libya.

Who are the Kouloughlis?

The Kouloughlis are one of the major tribal branches in Libya, and about 13 tribes fall under it. Those belonging to these tribes see themselves as higher ranking than the Arab Libyans, whom they cast as descendents of Arab Bedouin roots.

Descent from Turkish origins is the hallmark of Kouloughli society. Even the name is derived from the Turkish name Kologlu, which itself denotes descendents of the Ottoman sultans’ Janissary soldiers in the Turkish language.

The Kouloughlis came to be at the end of Ottoman rule in Libya, starting in 1556, when the Janissary soldiers residing in the city of Misrata married local women and gave birth to a dual identity generation.

Since that time, the descendants of these intermarriages were overpowered by their Turkish identity, despite their harmony with the Libyan society embracing them. Then in 2015, they launched an association that undermines the stability of Libyan society, known as the Libyan Kouloughli Society.

The association made it clear that it is an entity whose goal is to revive Ottoman heritage in North Africa, and it demanded that Turkey recognize the Libyan Kouloughlis as Turks with citizenship rights.

In order to promote further adherence to the Turkish identity, the association has been publishing what it considers the glories of the period of Ottoman rule in Libya, claiming that Libya under the Ottoman governors had powerful land and sea armies.

The association also joined the International Organization of Turkic Culture (Turksoy), an organization whose aim is to assemble Turkish ethnicities around the world.

Although Libyans criticized the association, they did not give much importance to the signs until after Erdogan mentioned about Turkey interfering to protect the Kouloughlis.

The Kouloughli risk

Mohamed al-Zubaidi, a researcher on Libyan affairs, told the Reference that the magnitude of the danger posed by the Kouloughlis is huge, comparing it to the Turkish experience in Cyprus in 1974.

In the 1970s, Turkey entered Cyprus under the pretext of defending Turkish Cypriots, Zubaidi explained. He pointed out that although the number of descendants of Turkish roots did not exceed 20%, Ankara intervened and carried out an ethnic genocide against the Greek Cypriots.

Zubaidi noted that the Turkish Cypriots at that time had played the same role as the Kouloughlis are currently playing in Libya, which is to promote the Turkish agenda and pave the way Ankara’s interests. He warned of the similarity between the Turkish role in Cyprus in the 1970s and Libya today, adding that it will be the Libyan Turks who bear responsibility for permitting the Turkish intervention.