Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, criticized recent calls made by French President, Emmanuel Macron, to withdraw Turkish troops from Libya.
“There are mercenaries who came from Chad, or Mali, where France has invaded. Macron needs to look at these first,” Erdoğan said on Friday. Macron has called on Ankara to withdraw Turkish troops from Libya.
Noteworthy, is that the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that Turkey transferred more than 18,000 mercenaries from Syria to western Libya. Among them are former fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and Al-Qaeda. It noted that about 8,000 mercenaries are now fighting beside the Government of National Accord (GNA).