Erdogan keeps running into scandals in Libya

Muazz Mohamed

Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, keeps running into scandals. On February 22, Erdogan conceded that some Turkish troops were killed in Tripoli. He added that his troops had killed and injured more than 100 people in return.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister, Mikhail Bogdanov, said his country had confirmed that Turkey transfers mercenaries and militants to Libya.

Conferences held with the aim of ending the Libyan crisis will apparently not succeed because of violations by the militias affiliated to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) of the ceasefire in Libya.

No result

Bogdanov said on February 26 that a recent United Nations resolution on Libya did not mention foreign fighters, even as Security Council experts underline their transfer to Libya by Turkey.

The official Russian news agency, TASS, quoted Bogdanov as saying that his country does not think either the GNA or the Libyan National Army (LNA) is ready to observe the ceasefire for Libya, which was reached during the Berlin conference on the North African state in January this year.

Meanwhile, the LNA said on February 26 that it had shot down a Turkish drone, for the third time in less than 24 hours, after it took off from Mitiga Airport.

This came hours after the LNA had shot down a Turkish drone that took off from the southern part of Tripoli.

LNA Spokesman, Ahmed al-Mesmari, accused the Turkey-backed GNA militias on February 24 of violating the truce.

These militias, he said, attack districts southern Tripoli with heavy artillery.

A ceasefire was agreed for Libya during the Berlin conference on January 20. The final communiqué of the conference also called for enforcing an arms embargo on Libya and called on countries to stop interference in Libyan affairs.

However, Turkey did not abide by any of the decisions of the conference.

A few days after the conference, Erodgan violated the decisions of the conference even more by sending more hirelings to Libya.

About 2,600 mercenaries had already arrived in Libya, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.