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

This week, Turkish Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalin met Lt. Gen. Saddam Haftar, deputy commander of the Libyan National Army, in Benghazi, Libya. The meeting was on June 23.

This represents a huge change from 2020. Six years have caused a major shift. Turkey has shifted from being involved in fueling conflict in Libya and stoking flames of tension in the Eastern Mediterranean to trying to be a broker of some kind of peace.

For critics of Ankara, this will all seem like 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 had then invaded Serekaniye in Syria. It had backed Azerbaijan in a conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. 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 feels it can shift course a bit. It no longer argues with the Gulf states. It is preparing to host a NATO meeting. It wants to work on stability in Syria. This also dovetails with Egypt and the US approach.

How did we get here? In April 2020, the GNA turned the tide against the LNA. This was made possible in partnership with Turkish drones. The GNA took the al-Watiyah 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 [a] warlord 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 airbase 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 notes that “Turkish Intelligence Chief Ibrahim Kalın met with Lt. Gen. Saddam Haftar, deputy commander of the Libyan National Army, in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi, security sources said 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. However, Libya is important. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, spoke this week about “terror states.” Among the countries mentioned was Libya.

However, Libya is no longer a collapsed state as it was in the past. As Daily Sabah notes, the eastern and western governments of Libya have recently conducted a joint military drill with the US and Turkey in Sirte.

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

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.”