The Turkish penetration into the extremely important geostrategic North Africa through Libya is here! Turkey, which considers Libya to be a key country for its hegemonic strategy in the SE Mediterranean and the Blue Homeland Doctrine, has now set foot there with not one but both feet. A consequence of this was the Turkish-Libyan Memorandum! It has “Turkified” Western Libya (Tripolitania) to a very large extent and has been throwing for months with the help of the United Arab Emirates bridges in Eastern (Cyrenaica), as well as the UAE in Tripolitania with the help of Turkey in order to create this traditionally hostile in this area, footholds.
With a numerous MIT echelon installed by Hakan Fidan, current Minister of Foreign Affairs when he was its Head, with all the media in Western Libya controlled by the… “echelon” of the Director of Strategic Communication of the Turkish Presidency, Fahrettin Altun, who is in essentially the Turkish “Goebbels”, with over 1000 members of the Turkish Armed Forces and several mercenaries.
There is a permanent Turkish military force at the Al-Watiyya Air Base, while Turkish Fleet Frigates are chartered, either in Misrata or in the Al-Khums port, which according to information will be granted as a base as well as a commercial port in Ankara. Let’s not forget that today around 120 thousand Libyans, gathered between Tripoli and Misrata, also known as “Kulogli” are proud of their Ottoman and Turkish origin.
Turkey is favored by the ongoing chaotic situation in Libya and has made the so-called Government of National Unity (GNU) of the chosen and business partner of the Erdogan family Abdelhamid Dahmeiba totally dependent on it. This government is of course recognized by the UN and the EU, even if it has lost its legitimacy after its failure to organize and hold elections in December 2021. Next to it, of course, is Italy, which is only interested in doing business of the Italian energy giant ENI and that illegal refugee flows do not move towards it.
It is appropriate to point out that in Libya the concept of nation falls short of this race! We have a multitude of clans (7 are the main ones and some 40 other smaller ones) and factions and depending on their interests they make alliances, some temporary and opportunistic which are understandably not stable. There are no homogenized regular Armies, but paramilitary groups with guards and mercenaries.
In recent months there has been ferment after serious pressure for Libya’s two main sides (followed occasionally by the corresponding clans and factions) to come to an agreement on a commonly accepted draft Constitution and electoral law. A committee has been set up, the so-called “6+6 Joint Committee” consisting of 6 representatives from the House of Representatives of Tobruk and 6 from the High Council of State (HCS) which is considered something like a …Senate!
At the beginning of the summer, some hopes were created for a final agreement after the initial one made in Morocco between the two Presidents, Aguila Saleh of the Parliament and Khaled Al Misri of the Council President who for a year had distanced himself from Dabaiba and from the Turks. This agreement was opposed by Dabaiba and Ankara, as it provided for the handing over of power and the formation of a government to hold the legendary elections. But after the marginal election on August 6 in the Presidency of the Supreme Council of Mohamed Takala thanks to the votes of the Prime Minister of Tripoli Dabeiba, the agreement is probably… dead!
We have a perpetual war fueling all against all (“Bellum omnium contra omnes”). There are two administrations, one in Tripoli and one in Benghazi, which control Western and Eastern Libya respectively, while in the southern regions of the country bordering Chad and Niger, warlords from the local Tumbu tribes operate, and in the southwest towards Algeria, armed Tuaregs.
Dabeiba, strongly supported primarily by Turkey and secondarily by Italy because of “the business” he does with Rome, insists on an electoral law that is convenient for him and especially for his government to organize the elections (presidential and parliamentary)! Let us not forget that the mandate he had received was to conduct elections in 2021 as interim prime minister on the condition that he not stand for them. For this reason, many parties inside and outside Libya consider that he has lost all legitimacy to remain in this position.
After the latest developments, the situation in Libya becomes more complicated and from the institutional contacts of Saleh with Al Misri to extra-institutional ones between the Dabaiba and Haftar families! By the way, these contacts are favored by the UAE and Turkey, which seem to have found a “modus operanti”.
Everyone talks euphemistically about elections, but deep down they know that another year will end and they will not have taken place. Fluidity continues, chaos exists and very often we have bloody clashes between paramilitary groups that abound especially in Tripolitania. Like the recent ones in Tripoli and its surroundings, between the “444 Brigade and the Special Deterrence Force” (names!) with at least 50 dead and around 100 wounded and which the Dabaiba Government watched as a … observer powerless to intervene!
Ankara with its agents and the strong military and political presence the longer this situation perpetuates, the more it becomes stronger in Libya. Many Libyans in Tripolitania even argue that their country should seek a model of unity with Turkey on a military, economic and cultural level, while in many schools Turkish has begun to be taught as a second language. At the same time, the Turks are “playing” the card of the “Western power” in Libya, which is preventing the Russian expansion and controlling the Islamic terrorist groups. Something that probably pleases the Americans.
Perhaps the time has come for the West to examine whether it is in its interest to have a unified Libya under the influence of Turkey or the existence of an autonomous entity and why not an independent one in the east in Cyrenaica which is also opposite the EU!
