Reports shed light on mercenaries, terrorists sent by Turkey to Libya | |
BERLIN - Western powers agreed on a gradual process of withdrawal of foreign troops and mercenaries from Libya after the second international conference held June 23 in Berlin.
The meeting, aimed at sorting out domestic and international entanglements in the North African nation so as to allow for elections to proceed there by the end of the year, seems to accommodate Turkish and Russian pressures against immediate withdrawal of troops and mercenaries backing opposite sides across the Libyan divide.
Germany and the United Nations brought together 17 countries at the conference in Berlin. Libya’s transitional leadership was joined by foreign ministers from Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Algeria, France and Italy, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and senior officials from Russia, the United Arab Emirates and others.
The meeting followed up on a January 2020 conference where leaders agreed to respect an arms embargo and to push the country’s warring parties to reach a full cease-fire. Germany has tried to act as an intermediary.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said the meeting “marked a new phase” and that “we are no longer only talking about Libya, but above all with Libya.”
Participants welcomed progress since the process was launched. An October cease-fire agreement including a demand that all foreign fighters and mercenaries leave Libya within 90 days led to a deal on the elections in December and the transitional government that took office in February.
Addressing the Berlin meeting, Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, who was appointed in March, called on Libya’s parliament to approve an election law to allow the December election to go ahead and to pass his government’s budget.
“Unfortunately, we have not yet seen the necessary seriousness from the legislative bodies,” he said.
Libyan Foreign Minister Najlah al-Mangoush said the transitional government came “with a vision of how best to re-establish stability in our country and pave the way for free, inclusive and safe elections on December 24.”
Wednesday’s conference saw powers involved in Libya recommit to refraining from interfering in the country’s internal affairs and stating that foreign forces and mercenaries need to be withdrawn “without delay”, something on which there has been little progress.
Asked what guarantees the countries involved are giving to withdraw foreign fighters, Maas pointed to the fact that they had gathered for the conference. He said that “we will not let up, and we will not rest, until the last foreign forces have left Libya … wherever they come from.”
He said Russia and Turkey, which have been heavily involved on opposite sides, understand that a withdrawal would have to be carried out “step by step” and added that it would have to be balanced, so that one side doesn’t gain an advantage.
The UN-sponsored conference, the second held in the German capital, renewed commitments to holding elections on December 24, a watershed for the North African nation where foreign powers have violently jostled for influence.
Libyan Foreign Minister Najlah al-Mangoush voiced hope that there would finally be progress on a key pledge from the first conference in January 2020, to pull foreign fighters out.
“We have a progress in terms of mercenaries, so you know hopefully within coming days, mercenaries from both sides (are) going to be withdrawing and I think this is going to be encouraging,” she told reporters.
US officials said that Turkey and Russia, on opposite sides both in Libya and Syria, were discussing a plan for each to pull out 300 Syrians fighting on opposite sides, a number that is small but would signal the start of a process.
They said details were still being worked out and “deep suspicions” remained but that the withdrawal plan came up on a trip last week by President Joe Biden, who met both his Russian and Turkish counterparts.
“There is a recognition even by some of these outside parties that if you could do some confidence-building measures that don’t undermine the status quo militarily, they don’t expose one side to an attack, let’s try that,” a senior US official said.
“Our typically American pragmatic approach is ‘let’s go for the low-hanging fruit’.”
The United Nations has estimated that 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries are still on Libyan territory. And that presence is seen as a threat to the UN-backed transition leading to the elections.
— Turkish reluctance —
Clouding the talks, Turkey refuses to withdraw its military, saying its presence is different as it has an agreement with the internationally recognised government.
Ankara has weighed in heavily the Libyan on the side of the Islamist backed former Government of National Accord (GNA) with mercenaries from Syria, its own military advisers and sophisticated equipment it has brought in. It says its presence on Libyan soil is legal, in conformity with a 2019 military cooperation agreement signed between Ankara and former Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj.
Turkey also invokes the presence of Russian mercenaries on the side of Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA).
In October, after Turkey-backed forces of the Government of National Accord (GNA) based in Tripoli routed those of the LNA led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the two camps agreed a ceasefire in Geneva.
Despite the failure of his offensive, Haftar remains powerful and last week deployed his Libyan National Army (LNA) in the south, declaring the closure of the border with Algeria.
The two sides’ October ceasefire called for the withdrawal of all foreign mercenaries by January. However, they remained in place and both sides argue over which group should leave first.
The LNA is said to be supported by mercenaries brought by Russia’s Wagner company, as well as from Sudan, Chad and Syria, UN bodies have said.
A frontline solidified around the coastal city of Sirte and a formal ceasefire was agreed in October. In November, the participants in a UN peace dialogue set a date for elections and agreed to create a new interim government.
— “First step” —
The security situation in Libya has been slowly improving since early this year.
But any withdrawal is also a delicate balancing act, said Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas.
He noted that there is an understanding between the Turkish and Russian side that “when withdrawal begins, it will not be a short period of time when everyone will immediately pull back… but that it will be a step-by-step approach”.
The invoked fear is that an uneven and sudden withdrawal could leave a military imbalance that could be exploited by the other side for a sudden offensive.
The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo also noted that the whole process “will take some time”.
A State Department official said it was unrealistic to think a full withdrawal of foreign fighters from Libya would come overnight and that it would be a phased approach.
“Getting at what we think is one of the key de-stabilising elements, the presence of these foreign fighters, Syrians, Chadians, Sudanese, that is an important first step and it’s not Ga
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