Turkey rebuffs Macron call for Libya troop withdrawal

Turkey on Saturday rebuffed French President Emmanuel Macron’s call on foreign powers to remove their forces from Libya as part of efforts turn on a page on a decade of strife.

The North African country has been mired in civil war since the overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi in a 2011 uprising. The bloodshed has drawn in competing Libyan factions and Islamist groups as well as foreign powers.

Turkey sent troops as well as pro-Ankara militia units from Syria to shore up the UN-recognised government in Tripoli while Russia and other countries supported the eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar. Macron told an international conference on Libya in Paris on Friday that “Russia and Turkey must withdraw their mercenaries without delay”.

But Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s top foreign policy adviser told AFP on Saturday that putting the emphasis on a quick troop withdrawal was “wrong”. “If you single out the pulling out of foreign forces... from Libya, as the most important, as the top issue, we believe that is wrong,” Ibrahim Kalin said in an exclusive interview.