Abdullah al-Thinni (Photo: Reuters)

libya‘s internationally recognized Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said his government would stop dealing with Turkey as it was sending weapons to a rival group in tripoli so “the Libyan people kill each other,” ramping up his rhetoric against ankara.

Two administrations, one in the capital and Thinni’s in the east, have been vying for power since an armed group called Libya Dawn seized Tripoli in July 2014 — four years after Muammar Gaddafi’s ousting — and reinstated lawmakers from a previous assembly.

“Turkey is a state that is not dealing honestly with us. It’s exporting weapons to us so the Libyan people kill each other,” he told Egyptian TV channel CBC late on Thursday.

A spokesman for Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly denied Thinni’s allegations. “Instead of repeating the same baseless and untrue allegations we advise them to support UN efforts for political dialog,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Tanju Bilgiç told Reuters.

“Our policy in relation to Libya is very clear. We are against any external intervention in Libya and we fully support the ongoing political dialog process under UN mediation,” he added.

Thinni’s government said this week it would exclude companies from future deals, accusing Ankara of backing the Tripoli government and its allied armed groups. He repeated that Turkish firms would be excluded from contracts in territory controlled by his government in the CBC interview, noting that any outstanding bills would be paid. “We don’t say we are hostile to Turkey but we say we won’t deal with it,” he said.

Turkey is one of a handful of countries that has publicly received officials from the Tripoli government and parliament. Critics of Ankara say its Libya policy is an extension of a pro-Islamist agenda that has already seen relations sour with other former regional allies, notably Egypt.

Thinni also accused Qatar of giving “material” support to the rival side in the Libyan conflict. He did not elaborate.

Army general Khalifa Haftar, who merged his forces with the army in the east to fight Islamist militants, is seen as a potential rival to Thinni. While the alliance between the groups has enabled them to win back territory, Haftar has been criticized for air strikes on civilian airports and seaports.

On Wednesday, a spokesman for Thinni’s parliament said the assembly’s president would appoint Haftar as top army commander.

The Libyan government reported in a statement that it has lost control of state offices in Tripoli to armed militias.

“We announce that most ministries, institutions and state bodies in the capital Tripoli are out of our control,” the statement, which was released overnight on Sunday, said. The statement also added that armed groups were “preventing government workers from entering and are threatening their superiors.”

Videos were also released on Sunday showing cheering Islamist militiamen, as they dived from an upstairs balcony into the swimming pool, at the US embassy compound in Tripoli that was evacuated in late July.

Parliament resigns

The interim government led by Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani announced last Thursday that it had “presented its resignation to the elected parliament”. The decision came just three days after the rival General National Congress (GNC) – which the new parliament officially replaced after elections in June – named the pro-Islamist figure Omar al-Hassi to form a new government.

Islamists, who were not as strong in the new legislature as the former one, subsequently reconvened the GNC in Tripoli last week, following an appeal by groups who refused to recognize the House of Representatives, due to its strong liberal and federalist presence.

Senior officials of the House of Representatives interim government, including Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, had already relocated to the remote eastern city of Tobruk last month after an alliance of armed militias, led by forces from the western city of Misrata, took control of the capital.

According to a statement from the government, the Libyan parliament is now operating from the east of the country for security reasons and is in contact with officials, “trying to ensure the continuity of services from afar”.

Descent into chaos

Since veteran dictator Moammar Gadhafi was overthrown and killed some three years ago, Libya has slowly descended into a state of anarchy.

With a civil war looming, Western powers and Libya’s neighbors continue to look on, somewhat helpless, amid fears that the North African country will turn into a failed state.

At the end of August, fighters from the Fajr Libya (Libyan Dawn) coalition also captured Tripoli airport after several days of clashes with nationalist militiamen.

ksb/kms (Reuters, AFP)

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