Turkish opposition rejects military intervention in Libya

Mostafa Salah – Reem Abdel Majeed – Mervat Zakaria

After announcing the Turkish government’s intention to send a draft resolution to Parliament stipulating the deployment of Turkish forces in Libya to accelerate Ankara’s plans for military intervention in Libya after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed that he is taking this step at the request of the Libyan National Accord government led by Fayez al-Sarraj.

The draft was scheduled to pass on the eighth of January, but Erdogan tried to pressure the parliament and the opposition to pass before that date, and despite Ceausoglu, Turkish Foreign Minister, made vigorous efforts to persuade the opposition to support the project in a meeting he held with opposition leaders, but they maintained a rejection this project.

On December 30, after the meeting, the main opposition party in Turkey – the Republican People’s Party – announced that it opposes a draft decision to deploy Turkish forces in Libya, explaining that this step would exacerbate the conflict in the country and spread it throughout the region.

In this context, the CHP believed that diplomacy should be given priority rather than engaging in a proxy war that would deteriorate the current situation in Libya.

In this regard, the deputy leader of the party, Onal Chivkoz, confirmed that the opposition will not allow Turkey to be “a reason for the bloodshed of Muslims” and continued, “We do not want what happened in Syria to happen in any other country.”

Although the details of the possible deployment of Turkish forces in Libya were not disclosed in terms of size, timing, and scope of deployment, the CHP made it clear that the opposition in Parliament would vote against it.

It is worth noting that the government was expected to submit a proposal to Parliament on Monday, January 6, to be voted on on Thursday, January 8, but it sought to accelerate this step, so it submitted it on Monday, December 30 to be voted on in an emergency session of Parliament on Thursday.

Opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdar said that the party objects to the killing of Turkish soldiers in Libya, and stressed that Erdogan’s policies in Libya and Syria will only harm Ankara.

He attributed Erdogan’s insistence on this decision that he wanted to go to Libya to support the Muslim Brotherhood and not to establish peace between the Saraj government and the Haftar government.