Ramzi Al-Agha, the head of the Liquidity Crisis Committee of the Al-Bayda branch of the Central Bank of Libya (CBL), told Al-Arabiya that the meeting that took place between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Head of the Libyan Central Bank, Al-Siddiq Al-Kabir, violated international protocols.
Such meetings are supposed to include at least the head of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA), Fayez Al-Sarraj. He claimed that President Erdogan was trying to prove that he was able to meet with any Libyan official alone, without the need of an official delegation, Al-Agha said.
He explained that this meeting was strange and unorthodox, especially given that Law No. 2 of 2001 on organizing political and consular work showed the need for communication between administrative and government units of the state with any external body through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
This is per the established diplomatic and consular rules. The CBL Governor was meant to attend the meeting with the head of state and in the presence of the Minister of Economy and Finance, Al-Agha said.
He emphasized that a major shift occurred in the management of external operations in the Central Bank, especially concerning transfers and financial deposits after the Turkish intervention in Libya.
Al-Kabir has transformed the operations of managing the financial reserves and created a set of time deposits with a period of about 4 years, without any returns, called “zero deposits”.
Their value is thought to have reached $8 billion and deposited in its entirety in the Central Bank of Turkey. These deposits, according to the agreement signed between Al-Sarraj and Erdogan, will remain in Turkish banks for 4 years, without any interest or costs. This is for the stability of the Turkish lira and to support the Turkish economy.
He also alleged that there are instructions to direct all financial credits to Turkish banks and to transfer Libyan funds and deposits that were present in European banks to Turkish banks. He said that several operations in this framework have been recently undertaken.