Libya’s Security Chief Signals Possible Rapprochement With Egypt
Libya’s Security Chief Signals Possible Rapprochement With Egypt
Libya’s security chief Fathi Bashagha said Egypt could play a role in helping to end his country’s divisions, signaling a possible rapprochement with the Arab regional power that had backed military commander Khalifa Haftar’s failed war to capture the capital.
Bashagha spoke after a video circulated on social media purporting to show forces loyal to the internationally recognized government abusing Egyptian captives. He cast doubt on the video’s authenticity and said the Interior Ministry he heads would investigate. But if it were authentic, Bashagha said his forces would arrest the culprits.
“These practices are rejected and denounced and have no connections with Libyan morals,” he told Bloomberg News by phone.
Egypt, which neighbors Libya to the east, had announced a cease-fire and political initiative last week to end the civil war that engulfed the North African country sitting atop Africa’s largest oil reserves. Haftar, whose offensive to take the capital, Tripoli, last year drew in Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, has supported the Egyptian proposals. So have his backers in the UAE and Russia.
Bashagha, who hasn’t formally accepted or rejected the plan, wrote on Twitter that any initiative that led to a civilian government was welcome -- without mentioning the proposal by name.
“Egypt is an important country for Libya,” Bashagha said in a phone interview. “We care about our relationship with Egypt. Egypt has the capability to help solve Libya’s problems.”
Haftar’s march on Tripoli pushed Libya into its worst violence since the 2011 NATO-backed ouster of Muammar Qaddafi, which ushered in years of instability that divided the country between rival administrations in the capital and the east. The commander is aligned with the eastern-based government, and before the offensive on Tripoli, had wrested control over the country’s east and south, including its major oil facilities.
Backed by Russian mercenaries, Haftar appeared poised to take the capital, and halted almost all of the OPEC member’s crude production in January to pile pressure on Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj’s internationally recognized government to surrender. Turkey, rivaling Russia to shape Libya’s future, intervened powerfully on behalf of Sarraj’s government and helped to push the commander’s forces from the west.
Bashagha had told Bloomberg last week that his government’s fighters would accept a truce and political talks with the east only after they’d reclaimed the strategic city of Sirte at the tip of Libya’s oil crescent, and the Juffra airbase. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has also said the campaign would continue until Sirte was captured.
But Egypt has warned that it would escalate if Turkey encroaches further east toward it border, two Western diplomats told Bloomberg. Both the Tripoli-based government and Haftar have been massing forces ahead of a possible confrontation in Sirte as the U.S. called for calm.
The foreign and defense ministers of Turkey and Russia were scheduled to meet in Ankara on Sunday to negotiate a possible resolution to the standoffs in Libya and in Syria, where they also support opposing sides, but the meeting was postponed.
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