UAE condemns sending Turkish troops to Libya

CAIRO – 3 January 2019: United Arab Emirates has condemned on Friday the Turkish parliament approval of a memorandum of understanding presented by the Turkish president to send military forces to Libya.

The ministry also warned of the repercussions of any Turkish military intervention into the North African country, stressing its rejection of any flimsy legal grounds given by Turkey to justify its possible military action, the statement added.

Such military intervention poses a real threat to Arab national security and the Mediterranean's stability, the ministry noted.

It highlighted the dangerous role played by Ankara in supporting terrorist groups, through the transfer of extremist elements to Libya.

The ministry called on the international community to hold its responsibility in standing up against this Turkish action, which could further escalate tensions in the region and affect all international efforts to reach a full settlement to the Libyan crisis.

On Thursday, Turkey’s Parliament voted for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposal to send Turkish troops to Libya, which is expected to deepen the Libyan crisis and mount tensions in the Middle East and North Africa.

Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), which constitute the majority of the Parliament, supported the bill, while the opposition, the Peoples' Democratic Party and the Republican People's Party stood against it.

The bill, which aimed to give one-year mandate to Erdogan to send troops to Libya, says the objective of sending troops is to “protect” the Turkish national interests against security risks posed by “illegal armed groups in Libya," in indication to the Arab-supported Libyan national army led by Khalifa Haftar.

Egypt strongly condemned, the Turkish parliament approval of a memorandum of understanding presented by the Turkish president to send military forces to Libya.

The Foreign Ministry affirmed in a statement that the MoU, inked between Chairman of the Libyan Presidential Council (PC) Fayez al Sarraj and the Turkish government on security and military cooperation, is ‘null and void’.

The Ministry’s statement highlighted the blatant violation of the Turkish parliament’s move to all the international accords and UNSC resolutions, especially 1970 resolution, issued in 2011, which created Libya Sanctions Committee and banned any arms supply to and military cooperation with the war-torn North African country unless such actions were approved by the committee.