Egypt’s President Abdel Fatah El Sisi said on Thursday that his government would not sit idle in the face of any action that poses a direct threat to Egyptian and Libyan national security, a presidency statement confirmed, reported Reuters.
The statement added that the tribal leaders, who met with President Sisi in Cairo, had authorized the president and Egypt’s army to intervene in the ongoing Libyan civil war to protect Libyan sovereignty. The tribesmen are allied to eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar, who has backing from the UAE, Russia, and Egypt. Turkey has helped the U.N. recognized the Government of National Accord (GNA) force Haftar’s army to abandon an offensive on Tripoli.
Haftar’s Libyan National Army is locked in a 15-month long conflict against Turkish-backed forces loyal to the GNA in Tripoli.
Addressing scores of tribal leaders and dignitaries from Libya, the president of Egypt said he too will have to secure the approval of parliament before his forces can move inside Libya as he condemned Turkey’s intervention in Libya in the strongest terms.
“We will not go into Libya unless you ask us to and we will leave when you order us to,” El Sisi said.
The statement comes after Libya’s parliament in eastern Libya voted earlier this week to invite the Egyptian military to intervene in Libya if Cairo saw a threat to the security of both nations.
The internationally recognised government in Tripoli has condemned the Egypt president’s recent statement.
The Government of National Accord’s (GNA) Foreign Ministry spokesperson criticized the statement as “blatant interference in Libyan internal affairs”.
“El-Sisi’s talk is a repeat of his previous statements, which is a blatant interference in Libyan affairs,” Mohammed al-Qablawi told Al Jazeera.
He added that el-Sisi’s speech was “not aimed at peace, as he said, but it is he who is fueling the [Libyan] conflict.”
