Any ceasefire deal will be difficult to enforce after recent escalation around Tripoli and Sirte. FMTNews Turkey Russia Libya
ISTANBUL: Turkey and Russia urged Libya’s warring parties on Wednesday to declare a ceasefire on Sunday as warring factions clashed and carried out airstrikes in a conflict drawing increasing foreign involvement and concern.
The conflict is undermining regional security and “triggering irregular migration, further spread of weapons, terrorism and other criminal activities including illicit trafficking,” their statement said. The GNA said late on Wednesday it welcomed any “serious call” to return to political talks, without addressing the ceasefire call directly.
Since April, the LNA has also been waging a campaign to take the capital, Tripoli, about 370km west of Sirte, where it is battling forces aligned with the GNA.Those forces are mainly from the port of Misrata, 190km east of Tripoli, and had controlled Sirte since driving Islamic State militants from the city in late 2016.
Later, unusually heavy artillery bombardment could be heard around Mitiga airport in Tripoli, which was closed last week because of shelling and rocket fire.Libya has been divided since 2014 into rival camps based in Tripoli and the east, each with its own set of institutions, and Haftar’s offensive against Tripoli upended UN efforts to broker a political settlement.
In Cairo, the foreign ministers of France, Egypt, Greece and Cyprus stressed their opposition to Turkey’s decision on a troop deployment to Libya, and to a maritime deal Turkey struck with the GNA in November that Greece and Cyprus see as a threat to their natural gas drilling rights.
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