ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey’s spy chief visited Libya as backers of the Tripoli government search for a way out of a political impasse that has shut down Libya’s oil exports and jeopardised four years of relative stability.
A Turkish security source said on Friday that Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Agency (MIT), had met Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah on Thursday, as well as other officials. Dbeibah head Libya’s U.N.-recognised, Turkey-backed Government of National Unity.
Kalin conveyed Ankara’s hope for conflicts in Libya to be resolved “through national agreement and for de-confliction to continue,” the source said, adding Kalin had also reiterated Ankara’s commitment to Libya’s unity and stability.
NATO member Turkey sent military personnel to Libya in 2020 to train and support a Tripoli-based government against eastern commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces, the Libyan National Army.
Kalin’s visit, the highest level contact between the sides since Dbeibah visited Ankara in late May, comes as rival Libyan authorities work to defuse a political standoff over last month’s ousting of veteran central bank chief Sadiq al-Kabir. The central bank receives and distributes funds from Libya’s oil exports, source of nearly all national income.
During the impasse, eastern factions had declared a shutdown to all oil production, demanding Kabir’s dismissal be halted, in a move that threatened to end four years of relative stability in Libya, which has had little peace since 2011 and was split in 2014 between eastern and western factions.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Daren Butler)
