Six years after fueling conflict, Turkey repositions itself as a peace broker in Libya - analysis

This week, on June 23, Turkish Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalın met with Lt.-Gen. Saddam Haftar, deputy commander of the Libyan National Army, in Benghazi, Libya.

This meeting, six years after 2020, represents a major change.

Turkey has shifted from its involvement in fueling conflict in Libya and stoking flames of tension in the Eastern Mediterranean to trying to broker some kind of peace in the region.

Critics of Ankara will say that Turkey’s leadership is merely putting on a mask and continues to retain its regional ambitions. The reality is that both can be true.

It invaded Afrin in Syria, using Syrian rebel proxies to attack Kurds, and then invaded Serekaniye; it backed Azerbaijan in a conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh; and it was also threatening Greece.

Turkey had also signed a deal with the GNA in Libya that fed Ankara’s claims of a swath of blue-water territory across the Mediterranean, essentially cutting the Mediterranean in half.

With the fall of the Assad regime and Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia, Turkey now feels it can shift course a bit. It no longer argues with the Gulf states and is preparing to host a NATO meeting.

Turkey wants to work on stability in Syria. This also dovetails with the approach of Egypt and the US.

How did we get here?

In April 2020, the GNA turned the tide against the LNA. This was made possible in part due to Turkish drones. The GNA took over the Al-Watiya Air Base, a key LNA base.

As the Washington Institute for Near East Policy noted at the time, “since then, fighting has remained intense in southern Tripoli and around Tarhuna, a town that provided the LNA with much of its local support and forces over the past year.”

Anadolu said it even more frankly:

“A key airbase in Libya was under the rule of warlord [Khalifa Haftar] for some six years until it was freed on Monday. A Libyan official on Monday said the government’s regaining control of the strategically important Al-Watiya Air Base was the beginning of freeing the country from forces loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar.”

Now the Haftars are no longer called warlords or coup plotters in pro-government media in Ankara.

Instead, Daily Sabah in Turkey reported that Kalın met with Lt.-Gen. Saddam Haftar for talks in Benghazi on Tuesday.

The report goes on to add that “according to information obtained from sources, the talks focused on efforts to preserve stability in Libya and advance the country’s political and military unification process.”

Turkey is discussing peace and ways to strengthen “efforts aimed at bringing Libya’s rival eastern and western administrations, as well as their military forces, under a single authority.”

It’s clear that a lot is happening in Libya behind the scenes. Most of the world has not been focused on Libya, but it is an important country.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke this week about “terror states.”

Among the countries mentioned was Libya. However, Libya is no longer a collapsed state like in the past. As Daily Sabah noted, Libya’s eastern and western governments have recently conducted a joint military drill with the US and Turkey in Sirte.

“Kalin and Haftar also reviewed bilateral relations between Turkey and Libya, discussing opportunities to expand cooperation across various sectors and further strengthen the partnership between the two countries,” Daily Sabah wrote.

Turkey has trained 23,000 Libyans, the report says.

“The talks in Benghazi reflect Ankara’s continued engagement with key actors across Libya as international and regional stakeholders seek progress toward reconciliation and the establishment of unified state institutions.”