On Wednesday, Turkey’s Ambassador to Italy Murat Salim Esenli said that Turkey’s military presence in Libya was based on two legal claims: UN Security Council Resolution 2259 and the MoU signed with the Government of National Accord (GNA) in late 2019.
During his meeting with reporters to mark the memory of the “failed Turkish coup” that occurred on 15 July 2016, Esenli claimed that “there are others who move outside international legitimacy by violating the arms embargo [on Libya],” according to Italian news agency ‘Nova’.
“In Libya, there are mercenaries from Chad, Sudan, and Syria, but we do not control these mercenaries and we do not know who they are, where they came from, and for whom they are fighting,” Esenli claimed.
“The regional countries are the ones who use mercenaries in Libya and our presence there is legal” the Turkish Ambassador concluded. He did not make any reference to the Syrian mercenaries sent by Ankara to Libya in support of GNA forces, which are presumed to number between 10,000 and 15,000 fighters.
On Tuesday, Italy’s former Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said that Turkey was taking advantage of the lack of real leadership in Europe to continue its intervention in Libya and support armed groups aligned to the Tripoli-based GNA.
In an interview with Sky News Arabia, Frattini said that Rome should have explicitly demanded Turkey to stop interfering in the Libyan conflict. He pointed out that Italy is preoccupied with economic issues over what is going on in Libya and the Mediterranean.
The Italian diplomat stressed that the GNA, led by Fayez Al-Sarraj, must stop plans to advance towards Sirte and Jufra. Frattini also said that “unfortunately, the United States does not play a positive role [in the Libyan conflict], which impedes the chances of resolving the crisis”.