Turkey’s FM: French President Is Destroying Libya

Arab World

July 1st, 9:39am

Ankara- Saeed Abdulrazek

Turkey’s FM: French President Is Destroying Libya

Turkey slammed France for following a destructive approach in Libya and accused Paris of seeking to increase the Russian presence on the country. "Even though we [Turkey] appear to be on opposite sides with Russia, we are working not to worsen the situation, but to achieve a ceasefire," Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in a news conference. Cavusoglu was responding to an earlier statement of French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday accusing Turkey of "criminal responsibility" over its involvement in the Libyan conflict. Macron said Turkey was "massively" transferring terrorist mercenaries from Syria to Libya. The Turkish FM indicated that Macron is aware his attack on Turkey will not benefit his domestic policy, hoping the French president learned a lesson that it will not help him. “France, which Macron governs or rather which he can't manage to govern at the moment, has been in Libya only for its own interests and ambitions with a destructive approach,” warned Cavusoglu. “NATO sees Russia as a threat on the hand, but NATO ally France is trying to increase Russia’s presence in Libya on the other,” added Cavusoglu. This is the first time that the head of Turkish diplomacy referred to the Russian presence as a "threat", which reflects the deep-rooted differences between Ankara and Moscow. The disparities between both countries were also apparent when Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu canceled their visit to Turkey scheduled for June 14 to discuss Libyan issues. Turkey and Russia coordinate in Syria despite their disagreement on Ankara’s support for armed opposition factions, and Moscow’s support for Bashar al-Assad as the 'legitimate president' of Syria. However, both countries haven’t been able to reach a similar settlement in Libya, where Russia supports the Libyan National Army (LNA), led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and Turkey supports the Government of National Accord (GNA), chaired by Fayez al-Sarraj. Even though France has not announced a clear position on LNA, Turkey continues to slam it. Despite NATO's position towards Russia, Turkey concluded a deal with Moscow on the S-400 missiles, which angered both the US and NATO.

from Asharq AL-awsat https://english.aawsat.com/home/article/2364616/turkey%E2%80%99s-fm-french-president-destroying-libya