{"id":42078,"date":"2019-12-26T04:22:15","date_gmt":"2019-12-26T04:22:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42078"},"modified":"2019-12-26T04:22:15","modified_gmt":"2019-12-26T04:22:15","slug":"lebanons-leaders-in-blame-game-over-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42078","title":{"rendered":"Lebanon\u2019s leaders in blame game over crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nANKARA:\u00a0Turkey is ready to give Libya military support, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, with the country\u2019s Parliament readying to authorize troop deployment.<\/p>\n

\nTurkey backs the government of Fayez Al-Serraj in Libya, which has been split into rival political and military factions since 2011 when ruler Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAl-Serraj\u2019s Government of National Accord (GNA) has been battling the forces of veteran eastern commander Khalifa Haftar, who launched an offensive to seize Tripoli from fighters loyal to the GNA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nTurkey and Libya recently signed a military cooperation deal. It includes provisions for a quick reaction force if requested by Tripoli.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe will continue to support the internationally recognized Libyan government. This support may be in terms of military training, or other areas, such as political support,\u201d presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said after Omer Celik, a spokesman for the ruling Justice and Development Party, said the country would use hard power instruments to protect its national interests if necessary.<\/p>\n

\nThe military cooperation deal has been criticized by the Turkish opposition, which said further military supplies to the GNA breach a UN arms embargo.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nBut Erdogan pledged Sunday to intensify military backing to Libya along with ground, air and marine options. Some Turkish media have reported that the government may establish a military base in Libya to support its operations.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cIt is important not to confuse Erdogan\u2019s rhetoric and the physical reality of the actions he has taken lately,\u201d Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations, told Arab News. \u201cThose are two very different things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHe recalled that Turkey sent around 60 national intelligence officers to operate combat drones in Libya during the summer, in violation of the arms embargo.<\/p>\n

\n

\nHIGHLIGHT<\/span>
\n<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n
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\nThe Turkish opposition has criticized military cooperation deal, saying military supplies to the Tripoli administration breach a UN arms embargo.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nHe said that the operation, although clandestine, helped the GNA to survive. \u201cHowever, that Turkish mission stopped almost entirely in the second half of October. After the defense accord was signed on November 27, the mission has been partially resumed. But it is now a much more timid, much smaller version of summer\u2019s operation. Very few airstrikes are being carried out by the Turks on behalf of Libya\u2019s internationally recognized government.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAnkara was only talking about possibly sending government troops, he said, but none of it had happened.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTurkey\u2019s intervention right now is much smaller than three or four months ago. And even back then, the Turkish military intervention was remarkably smaller than the Emiratis\u2019 own military intervention, which now involves airstrikes conducted using fighter jets on a routine basis. Overall, since April, the total number of Emirati drone strikes has been three times as large as the Turkish drone strikes in Libya.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nHarchaoui said that Ankara seemed \u201cdeeply interested\u201d in attempting some sort of diplomatic entente, particularly with Russia.<\/p>\n

\nRussia has said it is concerned about the possibility of Turkey deploying troops in Libya. Russian President Vladimir Putin is visiting Turkey next month, with the two nations expected to launch an important Libya initiative.<\/p>\n

\nErdogan said Wednesday he had discussed with his Tunisian counterpart, President Kais Saied, possible steps and cooperation to establish a cease-fire in Libya.<\/p>\n

\nIn a news conference alongside Saied, Erdogan said he believed Tunisia would have \u201cvaluable and constructive\u201d contributions to establishing stability in Libya.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANKARA:\u00a0Turkey is ready to give Libya military support, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, with the country\u2019s Parliament readying to authorize troop deployment. Turkey backs the government of Fayez Al-Serraj in Libya, which has been split into rival political and military factions since 2011 when ruler Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed.\u00a0 Al-Serraj\u2019s…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":42079,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=42078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}