French President Emmanuel Macron has accused Turkey of violating the agreement established at a Berlin summit to rein in the Libya conflict by halting foreign interference, saying Turkish warships and Syrian fighters arrived in the North African country.
“In the past few days — in the past few days! — we saw Turkish ships accompanied by Syrian mercenaries arriving on Libyan soil. This is an explicit and serious violation of the Berlin agreements,” said Macron on Wednesday after meeting with the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Paris.
The Turkish government’s actions are entirely contradictory to what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had committed to at the Berlin summit earlier this month, Macron asserted.
“It is a violation of his given word, it is an attack on the sovereignty of Libya and it is an attack on the security of all Europeans and inhabitants of the Sahel. I want to say this emphatically,” he continued.
Macron’s comments come a week after world powers backing opposing Libyan factions had agreed to an arms embargo at a conference hosted by Germany.
Turkey blamed France on Wednesday for Libya’s instability, after French President Emmanuel Macron accused his Turkish counterpart of failing “to keep his word” to end meddling in the north African country.
“The main (actor) responsible for the problems in Libya since the crisis started in 2011 is France,” Turkish foreign ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement.
“It’s no secret that this country has given unconditional support to (military strongman Khalifa) Haftar in order to have a say regarding natural resources in Libya,” he added.
