Turkey is accelerating a diplomatic charm-offensive toward Libya’s eastern powerbrokers in the hope of clinching nationwide ratification of a 2019 maritime boundary agreement that redraws the map of the Eastern Mediterranean in Ankara’s favor.
According to a news analysis by Al-Monitor’s Ezgi Akin, Ankara now sees the House of Representatives in Benghazi as “a valuable strategic asset” after years of hostility. It is pressing the chamber to endorse the Turkey-Tripoli accord it once rejected.
The shift was underscored last week when Saddam Haftar — ground-forces commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) and son of eastern strongman Khalifa Haftar — made his second trip to Turkey in four months and met Defense Minister Yaşar Güler at an Istanbul defense fair. The visit came only weeks after Benghazi lawmakers formed a committee to study the accord.
“I still remember when the Turkish authorities used to call Haftar a ‘war criminal,’” Claudia Gazzini of the International Crisis Group told Al-Monitor. “Fast forward to today, they are a regular presence in the East, and the Haftars are invited to military shows in Turkey.”
The 2019 memorandum, signed with the then Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, carves out a Turkey-Libya corridor through the Mediterranean that effectively nullifies many Greek island exclusive economic zone (EEZ) claims. Soner Çağaptay of the Washington Institute noted that “almost all of Turkey’s actions towards Libya should be interpreted within the context of great-power competition in the eastern Mediterranean,” adding that Ankara views Libya as “a key ally across the Mediterranean, providing Turkey with access to open seas.”
Libya’s eastern camp has its motives. “Haftar has weaponized the maritime review as multi-directional leverage,” said Anas El Gomati, head of the Tripoli-based Sadeq Institute. “The prospect of ratification alarms European capitals … and in turn is creating opportunities to extract diplomatic recognition from Brussels and economic concessions.”
Turkey is sweetening the package with commercial incentives: Turkish Airlines resumed Istanbul-Benghazi flights in January for the first time since 2014, and construction giants are bidding for eastern Libya’s reconstruction projects.
Diplomats in Ankara also point to warmer ties with Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and the European Union, all of whom castigated Turkey’s Mediterranean forays six years ago. “We act in line with the ‘one Libya’ principle,” a Turkish Foreign Ministry source told Al-Monitor, insisting the outreach will not undercut the UN-recognized Government of National Unity in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah.
Analysts caution that the maneuver is not without risk: a fully empowered maritime accord could reignite friction with Greece and Cyprus, and Ankara will have to balance relations with two rival Libyan administrations that remain technically at war. Yet Sinan Ülgen of Istanbul’s Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies argues that parliamentary ratification “would be a political gain for Turkey,” unlikely to provoke the same regional backlash seen in 2019.
For President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the gamble is clear: if Benghazi’s lawmakers endorse the pact, Turkey’s contested maritime claims become a nationwide Libyan treaty — and Ankara’s hand in the Mediterranean grows markedly stronger.
Photo: When some time ago Haftar was the “golden boy” of Ankara’s regional rival Athens, Wikipedia Commons