{"id":42102,"date":"2019-12-28T03:22:10","date_gmt":"2019-12-28T03:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42102"},"modified":"2019-12-28T03:22:10","modified_gmt":"2019-12-28T03:22:10","slug":"libya-policy-threatens-turkey-russia-alliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42102","title":{"rendered":"Libya policy threatens Turkey, Russia alliance"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\nANKARA: Experts say that the rift between Moscow and Ankara over policy differences in Libya may intensify following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s decision to send troops to Libya at the request of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA).<\/p>\n

\nThe presence of a senior Turkish delegation in Moscow on Monday to meet their Russian counterparts is considered an effort to avert a major bilateral crisis.<\/p>\n

\nAlthough welcoming attempts for resolving the crisis in the North African country, Russia is against any interference in Libya\u2019s internal affairs by an outsider, the Russian president\u2019s press secretary, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe have repeatedly reiterated Russia\u2019s stance on the Libyan crisis. Moscow is seeking a prompt resolution of the conflict and an end to the bloodshed in the country,\u201d Peskov said.<\/p>\n

\nKonstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Federation Council\u2019s International Affairs Committee, wrote on his official Facebook page that Turkish military intervention in Libya could be the worst scenario.<\/p>\n

\nKosachev also criticized Erdogan\u2019s recent claims that the Kremlin-linked Wagner group is in Libya with 2,000 mercenaries supporting Gen. Khalifa Haftar\u2019s forces. Erdogan condemned the Russian presence in Libya, saying they had not been invited by the official government.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cTo put it kindly, considering the level of our bilateral relations, it is not accurate to hear such statements from Ankara,\u201d Kosachev said.<\/p>\n

\n

\nThis section contains relevant reference points, placed in (Opinion field)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\nThe comments from the Kremlin side were made after Erdogan\u2019s announcement that he would submit a motion to the Parliament early next month to use Turkish troops in Libya.<\/p>\n

\nParliamentary approval is required for deploying Turkish troops although there is a military cooperation deal between both parties. The prospect of setting foot in Libya also boosts the nationalist narrative in Turkey.<\/p>\n

\nSamuel Ramani, a geopolitical analyst and doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford, UK, points to the risk of an Ankara-Moscow confrontation ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s visit to Turkey on Jan. 8.<\/p>\n

\nAll eyes are now on this planned visit which will be dominated not only by the opening of the TurkStream natural gas pipeline, but also by developments in Libya.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cErdogan and Putin have consulted each other on carving out zones of influence in Libya to avoid conflict, but the potential for a clash is real,\u201d Ramani told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nIn Syria and Libya, Russia and Turkey are backing rival parties. Turkey supports Fayez Al-Serraj\u2019s GNA in Tripoli, which controls the west of the country, while Russia is backing its rival, Haftar\u2019s eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA).<\/p>\n

\nAccording to Ramani, any confrontation between Ankara and Moscow would be unwelcome and have repercussions at a time when both powers are trying to reach a settlement on Idlib and Syrian refugee repatriation.<\/p>\n

\nThe UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights recently claimed that Turkey-backed Syrian rebels have opened recruitment centers in northern Aleppo for dispatching young fighters to Libya through Turkey with a monthly salary of up to $2,000.<\/p>\n

\nAccording to a UN report last month, Turkey has already sent military supplies to the GNA in breach of the arms embargo.<\/p>\n

\nIn anticipation of more military engagement, the Turkish Red Crescent is also gearing up to open a branch in Libya in the first months of 2020.<\/p>\n

\nMichael Tanchum, a senior associate fellow at the Austrian Institute for European and Security Policy (AIES), told Arab News that Russia does not want chaos in Libya, and the Kremlin would like to continue to use Turkey to keep NATO divided and off-balance.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cErdogan\u2019s best pitch to Putin is that if the GNA falls there will be more war and instability and that the Turkey-Russia partnership in managing Libya is a better option. Despite the previous flexibility that Russia has shown toward Turkey\u2019s strategic ambitions, the Libya case may be different,\u201d he said. \u201cSufficient weight needs be given to the Russia-Egypt and Russia-UAE relationships when assessing Russia\u2019s strategic calculus. All these factors are at play.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe special representative of Putin for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia Mikhail Bogdanov, met yesterday separately with the Libyan and Turkish ambassadors.<\/p>\n

\nFor Timur Akhmetov, a researcher at the Russian International Affairs Council, Russia is facing a dilemma where it should embrace Turkish demands for participation in Libyan affairs but keep Turkish participation not critical to Russian interests.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe general trend now is that Turkey, while being isolated in the region, enforces its diplomatic stance with heavier reliance on hard power, but it doesn\u2019t necessarily mean Ankara\u2019s intrinsic inclination to hostilities; hard times demand desperate measures,\u201d he told Arab News.<\/p>\n

\nFor Akhmetov, Russia would probably accept Turkish involvement to an extent where its role suits or facilitates Russian long-term interests such as stabilization of the conflict, securing economic assets or eventually making all major belligerent sides accept a final resolution.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ANKARA: Experts say that the rift between Moscow and Ankara over policy differences in Libya may intensify following Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan\u2019s decision to send troops to Libya at the request of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). The presence of a senior Turkish delegation in Moscow on Monday to meet their Russian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":42103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42102","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\/42102","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=42102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}