Ankara's talks test opportunities to unify the military establishment in Libya

The ongoing talks in Ankara between representatives of the two main military forces in eastern and western Libya are testing opportunities for “unifying the army,” amid reports of discrepancies regarding “the nature and limits of the proposed arrangements, and disagreements within the Presidential Council regarding the powers to manage this file.”

The talks, which began (Friday) between the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Defense in the “Interim” Government of National Unity, Abdul Salam Al-Zoubi, and the Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the National Army, Lieutenant General Saddam Haftar, open a new path in attempts to overcome the military division, amid Turkish moves to bring the military institutions in the East and West closer together, and an American initiative led by President Donald Trump’s advisor for Arab and African affairs, Massad Boulos, to rearrange the executive authority in the country.

Amid great official secrecy about the content of the meeting, Libyan sources say that “the talks focus on the technical and military aspects related to the restructuring of the military institution, and the nature of the participants and their timing raise questions about their relationship to the broader political track, and the possibility that the military understandings will become an entry point for the redistribution of influence between the two camps.”

According to local reports, the talks that took place in the Turkish capital, sponsored by Ankara, dealt with arrangements for military coordination, including the establishment of a joint command room representing the two parties, and the formation of a joint military force to begin its tasks in the southern region.

Reports also spoke of broader proposals to reorganize the military leadership and unify some administrative and financial structures, without an official joint announcement confirming agreement on these arrangements or their final adoption.

Saddam Haftar, in a statement on Friday, simply said, “Libya is bigger than our differences, and too precious to remain a hostage of our divisions.”

In an indication of the Turkish bet on achieving progress in this file, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan considered that the conditions had become ripe for the permanent unification of eastern and western Libya. He said (Friday) that “the military structures on both sides should be integrated into a unified national army,” expressing his hope that an announcement in this regard would be issued in the near future.

Al-Zoubi and Saddam Haftar had met on previous occasions, under Turkish or American sponsorship, including a meeting in Istanbul last May, in the context of communications aimed at bringing closer viewpoints between the competing military forces.

Since Thursday, political and media circles in Algeria have been circulating news about the Algerian Parliament’s readiness to grant President Abdelmadjid Tebboune a mandate, in his capacity as Minister of Defense, allowing the sending of army units to Niger, as part of a possible military move targeting armed groups suspected of seeking to overthrow the country’s president, Abderrahmane Tiani.

According to parliamentary sources, the two meetings will be devoted to granting the army a mandate allowing it to intervene outside Algerian territory, in application of the second paragraph of Article 91 of the Algerian Constitution.

It does not seem that changing the leadership of the Central Bank of Libya has become sufficient to end the pressures that are affecting its administration due to the inflation of government spending, according to experts who saw this as “a reflection of a crisis situation in a country that has been suffering from political and governmental division for more than a decade.”