African Arguments

Top Menu

  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate

Main Menu

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Swaziland
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • #EndSARS
  • Specials
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
  • About Us
  • Write for us
  • Contact us
  • Advertise
  • Newsletter
  • RSS feed
  • Donate

logo

African Arguments

  • Home
  • Country
    • Central
      • Cameroon
      • Central African Republic
      • Chad
      • Congo-Brazzaville
      • Congo-Kinshasa
      • Equatorial Guinea
      • Gabon
    • East
      • Burundi
      • Comoros
      • Dijbouti
      • Eritrea
      • Ethiopia
      • Kenya
      • Rwanda
      • Seychelles
      • Somalia
      • South Sudan
      • Sudan
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Red Sea
    • North
      • Algeria
      • Egypt
      • Libya
      • Morocco
      • Tunisia
      • Western Sahara
    • Southern
      • Angola
      • Botswana
      • Lesotho
      • Madagascar
      • Malawi
      • Mauritius
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Swaziland
      • Zambia
      • Zimbabwe
    • West
      • Benin
      • Burkina Faso
      • Cape Verde
      • Côte d’Ivoire
      • The Gambia
      • Ghana
      • Guinea
      • Guinea Bissau
      • Liberia
      • Mali
      • Mauritania
      • Niger
      • Nigeria
      • São Tomé and Príncipe
      • Senegal
      • Sierra Leone
      • Togo
  • Politics
    • Elections Map
  • Economy
  • Society
  • Culture
  • #EndSARS
  • Specials
    • Covid-19
    • Travelling While African
    • From the wit-hole countries…
    • Living in Translation
    • Red Sea
    • Beautiful Game
  • Debating Ideas
Africa Insiders

Africa Insiders: Turkish adventures on African shores

By Africa Insiders
January 9, 2020
989
0
Share:
Turkey Libya: Turkish frigate TS Fatih. Credit: US government
Turkey Libya: Turkish frigate TS Fatih. Credit: US government

Turkish frigate TS Fatih. Credit: US government

The essentials: The Turkish parliament last week approved the deployment of troops to Libya to shore up the coalition that holds the capital Tripoli and the internationally-recognised government against militias supported by Russia and Arab nations. This marks an increasing escalation of foreign intervention in Libya and further undermines any hopes for a quick ceasefire.

The context: The self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) of General Haftar escalated a long-running political standoff between the internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) and its rival administration based in the eastern city of Tobruk when it began an offensive to capture Tripoli in April 2019. Instead of achieving a quick and decisive victory, Haftar’s aggression served to unite dozens of militias behind the GNA. The conflict devolved into a stalemate that has seen more than 2,000 combat related deaths in the past 12 months.

Both sides have been continuously supported by outside actors. Haftar especially has received increasingly overt military aid from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Russia and the United Arab Emirates, ranging from weapons and munitions to air support and military advisers. The GNA’s supporters like Turkey have provided similar, though less prominent, aid.

Turkey’s open deployment of regular military forces thus represents a logical but new level of escalation. With air strikes a daily occurrence it seems only a matter of time until Turkish forces will experience casualties, even if they are not deployed directly to the front lines. If the LNA’s backers react with similar deployments, this could lead tensions over Libya’s future to manifest in the Middle East and Turkey, hardly the most stable regions either.

The good: Turkey’s involvement throws a military lifeline to the GNA, which has been on the back foot against the better equipped forces of the LNA and its allies. While both sides have committed atrocities over the past years and rely on questionable political legitimacy, Haftar and his allies are the less savoury characters by far and have been the main spoilers of a peaceful solution.

The bad: While potentially stabilising the position of the GNA, the Turkish deployment doesn’t actually solve anything. It also has already led to widespread condemnation from the usual critics of Turkish foreign policy, including EU states like Italy and Greece, which risks making Turkey’s problems into those of the GNA.

The future: While unrealistic at the moment, Libya is a clear case for an international peacekeeping mission that would de-escalate the situation and allow the necessary space for a negotiation over a political settlement. At the moment it looks like forces in Libya and their international backers are intent on trying to resolve the conflict by force, which bodes ill for the millions of civilians that will find themselves in harm’s way.

  • Libya’s Haftar forces say have taken control of Sirte (France24)
  • Turkey Starts Military Deployment in Libya as International Pressure Rises (Voice of America)
  • Libya conflict: Turkey sends troops to shore up UN-backed government (BBC)
  • ranscript of SRSG for Libya Ghassan Salameh (UNSMIL) on Libya (United Nations)
  • How to Stop Libya’s Collapse (Foreign Affairs)
  • Big questions for Libya in 2020 (Middle East Institute)
  • From Tripoli’s front lines: How Haftar recovered from the setback in Gharyan and what’s next for the advancing LNA (Mada Masr)

Written by Peter Dörrie


Pay what you want for the FULL Africa Insiders Newsletter!

We hope you enjoyed this Free Edition of the Africa Insiders, but is only a taste of the full experience. This week, the Full Edition also covered:

  • What We are Talking About: Angola freezes assets of Africa’s richest woman
  • Continental Health corner: Africa’s emerging polio problem
  • Links of the week: Everything Africa-related that is worth your time and attention

To upgrade, email newsletter@africanarguments.org, telling us the price you’d like to pay.

Yes, you decide the price as long as it’s at least $2 per month to cover the transaction costs.

If you are unsure what to pay, we recommend $10, but it’s up to you and we won’t judge. If you give more ($15/month, $50/month, $100/month!), your extra donation above $10 will go into a special fund for AfricanArguments.org to commission in-depth articles by African writers and journalists that will be free to read for everyone.

Again, just email newsletter@africanarguments.org and let us know any amount of $2 or more and you’ll get the Full Africa Insiders Newsletter for the price that feels right to YOU!


The Africa Insiders’ Newsletter is a collaboration between AfricanArguments.org and @PeterDoerrie, with contributions from @_andrew_green and @Shollytupe and assistance from Stella Nantongo. Part of the subscription revenue is funding in-depth and freely accessible reporting and analysis on African Arguments.

Previous Article

Tanzania elections: Life has got worse under ...

Next Article

Cameroon grants ‘special status’ its to restive ...

mm

Africa Insiders

The Africa Insiders Newsletter is a weekly newsletter brought to you by African Arguments. Written by leading journalists and analysts, it it made up of snappy, insightful updates on the major developments that have hit the week's headlines, and those that should've.

Leave a reply Cancel reply

  • Politics

    Elections in Sudan: In Whose Interest?

  • Politics

    Rwanda and the ICC: Playing Politics with Justice – By Stephen A. Lamony

  • Politics

    Understanding the al-Shabaab/al-Qaeda “˜merger’ – By Abdi Aynte

The Africa Insiders Newsletter

Get the free edition of our exclusive look at this week’s most important developments on the continent.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!

  • 76272
    Followers

Interactive Elections Map

Keep up to date with all the African elections.

Most read

  • africa elections 2021

    Africa Elections 2021: All the upcoming votes

  • Africa coronavirus covid A woman in Mali wearing a mask. Credit: Photo: World Bank / Ousmane Traore.

    Africans don’t just live to die. A response to the New York Times.

  • eritrea Adigrat Street in Tigray, Ethiopia. Credit: Rod Waddington.

    Eritrea in the Tigray war: What we know and why it might backfire

  • In Aksum, Tigrayan region of Ethiopia. Credit: Rod Waddington.

    As a Tigrayan, my bond with Ethiopia feels beyond repair

  • west President Yoweri Museveni meeting with then IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde in 2017. Credit: IMF Staff Photograph/Stephen Jaffe.

    Museveni and the West. Relationship status: It’s complicated

Brought to you by


Creative Commons

Creative Commons Licence
Articles on African Arguments are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
  • Cookies
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms & Conditions
  • en English
    am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu
© Copyright African Arguments 2020
en English
am Amharicar Arabicny Chichewazh-CN Chinese (Simplified)en Englishfr Frenchde Germanha Hausait Italianpt Portuguesest Sesothosn Shonaes Spanishsw Swahilixh Xhosayo Yorubazu Zulu