The White House on Thursday confirmed that U.S. President Donald Trump and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi had a telephonic conversation on Libya during which the two leaders rejected foreign exploitation in Libya and urged the two parties to the conflict to take urgent steps to resolve the fighting, reported Reuters.
“Regarding Libya, the leaders rejected foreign exploitation and agreed that parties must take urgent steps to resolve the conflict before Libyans lose control to foreign actors,” the White House said in a statement.
The phone call was made just hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he will send troops to support Libya’s internationally recognized government in the fighting against eastern commander Khalifa Haftar and his forces.
Haftar’s Libyan National Army had launched an offensive to take Tripoli from the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in April. He claims that his mission is to get Libya rid of extremist militias backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar and Turkey. He has got support from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France and Russia, while the GNA is backed by Turkey and Qatar.
Erdogan said his government would introduce a bill to send troops to support the UN-backed Libyan government as soon as the parliament resumes, calling the deployment a response to the country’s invitation.
“Since there is an invitation (from Libya) right now, we will accept it,” the Turkish president said. “We will put the bill on sending troops to Libya on the agenda as soon as parliament opens.”
He said that the legislation would be passed around Jan. 8-9.
In November, Turkey signed a maritime delimitation agreement and a military cooperation deal with Fayez al-Sarraj’s Tripoli-based Government of National Accord.
Meanwhile, on Thursday, Interior Minister of the UN-backed government of Libya Fathi Bashagha revealed that a Turkish-Tunisian-Algerian alliance was formed to support the Libyan government.
“There will be a great cooperation with Turkey, Tunisia and Algeria, and we will be in one alliance,” Bashagha said at a press conference in Tunis.
