Libya's Haftar asks for more time to consider ceasefire deal

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said Libyan National Army (LNA) commander Khalifa Haftar asked until Jan. 14 morning to consider a ceasefire deal in Libya. The negotiation talks in Moscow, which involved the leaders of the major Libyan warring parties as well as foreign and defense ministers of both Russia and Turkey, lasted for more than six hours and were mostly focused on detailing the terms of the ceasefire regime.

Monday January 13 2020 01:57 pm

Duvar English/Reuters

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu has said that Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), asked until Jan. 14 morning to consider a ceasefire deal in Libya.

Çavuşoğlu's statement came as Libya's warring leaders held indirect peace talks in Moscow on Jan. 13 with Russia and Turkey urging the rivals to sign a binding truce to end a nine-month-old war and pave the way for a settlement that would stabilize the North African country.

"We made out a draft text containing the modalities of a possible ceasefire," Çavuşoğlu told a joint press briefing with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.

Lavrov, for his part, said that Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of Libya’s U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA), had signed onto the document.

The talks come after a ceasefire in Libya, initiated by Turkey and Russia, saw a lull in heavy fighting and air strikes on Jan. 12, though both factions accused each other of violating the truce as skirmishes continued around the capital Tripoli.

Turkey backs Haftar's rival, Serraj, who heads the Tripoli-based GNA, while Russian military contractors have been deployed alongside Haftar's LNA forces.

Çavuşoğlu and Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar met with Serraj in Moscow on Jan. 13, a day after the GNA leader visited Turkey to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Russia's TASS news agency reported that Serraj had refused to engage in direct talks with Haftar, suggesting Russian and Turkish diplomats were acting as go-betweens between the two delegations.

Libya, which has been mired in turmoil since the toppling of strongman Muammar Gaddafi, has had two rival governments since 2014. The conflict between the forces of the two factions has wrecked the country's economy, fuelled migrant smuggling and militancy, and disrupted oil supplies.

The Russo-Turkish peace push, the latest international attempt to stem the violence, comes more than nine months into an offensive on Tripoli by the LNA led by Haftar.

Erdoğan: I wish for a truce deal to be signed soon

Also on Jan. 13, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte visited Turkey and met with Erdoğan to discuss the Libya conflict.

Speaking alongside Conte in Ankara, Erdoğan said his country was working to ensure that a ceasefire in Libya would become permanent.

He said he hoped the Moscow talks would form the basis of discussions at a summit in Berlin on Jan. 19, which he said he would attend with Conte and Putin. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Jan. 11 she planned to host such a summit after holding talks with Putin.

"I wish for a truce deal to be signed soon," Erdoğan said. "The talks in Moscow are still underway at the moment. I believe they will come to an end in the evening hours, but I have just received information that they are going positively."

LNA 'shoots down Turkish drone'

Meanwhile, the LNA has said that it shot down a Turkish drone that was carrying mortar rounds in violation of the latest ceasefire between the LNA and GNA.

"An enemy Turkish drone that was carrying mortar rounds was shot down. This [the flight] was a violation of the ceasefire," the LNA operations room's press office said.