TRIPOLI, June 9 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Libya’s resurgent UN-recognised government has said it will defy any Russian warnings and press ahead with the capture of at least two more strategic sites in the west of Libya, with the aim of preventing Russia from setting up an airbase in the country.
It made the announcement as oil production restarted in Libya after being shut down since January.
The UN-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA), supported by Turkey, said it intended to press ahead with the capture of both the coastal town of Sirte and the al-Jufra airbase currently housing 14 Russian MiG-29s and Su-24s.
Libya’s previously deadlocked civil war has been transformed over the past week by the retreat of the Russian-backed forces of General Khalifa Haftar, the military leader in the east.
The GNA decision to make further territorial gains was disclosed by the interior minister, Fathi Bashagha, countermanding any suggestion from others in the GNA leadership that it should accept a Russian warning that any effort to capture Sirte would be seen as crossing a red line by Russia.
Russia appears to be trying to reach an understanding on spheres of influence within Libya whereby Moscow has influence in the east and Turkey in the west.
The GNA last week lifted a yearlong siege of Tripoli by Haftar’s forces, a victory that was celebrated by the GNA prime minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, flying low over Tripoli in his presidential plane.
Haftar’s principal regional backer, the Egyptian president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, rushed on Saturday to issue a call for a ceasefire starting on Monday, and the relaunching of political talks.
But his appeal, supported by France at the weekend, looked like a belated conciliatory act forced upon Egypt by the self-evident collapse of Haftar’s project to capture Tripoli.
The Turkish presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, advised Cairo to abandon support for Haftar, saying, “His time is up.” The GNA called for him to be tried for war crimes and said he could not be involved in any talks on Libya’s future.
Haftar himself did not seem to have accepted how weak his hand had become, demanding that Sisi make “urgent and effective efforts to compel Turkey to completely stop the transfer of weapons and mercenaries to Libya”.
Influence in the east appeared to be ebbing away from Haftar and towards the Libyan parliament speaker Aguila Saleh, whose chamber is based in the east.
Bashagha said the GNA would hold political talks, but only after retaking Sirte and the al-Jufra base. His commitment to pushing the Russians out of the airbase would be welcomed by the US, which has belatedly woken up to the Russian hybrid warfare in Libya.
Russia has not been operating overtly in Libya, instead using unmarked planes and as many as 1,000 mercenaries. Few believe the Russian forces are present without the tacit approval of the president, Vladimir Putin.
The GNA announced that it was planning to try two captured Russian mercenaries, saying it had documents showing the pair were trying to subvert democracy in Libya.
At present Turkey looks like the winner from last year’s fighting since the decision of its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to give overt backing to the GNA in defiance of an UN arms embargo paid off. Turkey said it was now in line to win reconstruction contracts, access to gas fields in the eastern Mediterranean, and even a slice of Libyan oil reserves.
The Libyan National Oil Company said on Sunday that production had resumed at the Sharara oil field, the country’s largest, which was shut months ago by Haftar’s forces.
Sharara, about 900km south of Tripoli, produces 315,000 barrels a day – nearly one third of Libya’s crude output – but is frequently attacked and blockaded by militias. In January, valves at a pumping station were closed, forcing a halt in production at Sharara and costing the treasury more than $5.2bn, the National Oil Company said.
The UN mission in Libya appealed for the resumption of political talks and said it was demanding an investigation into “deeply disturbing” reports of corpses being found in a hospital in Tarhouna, a town south of Tripoli that has been under the control of Haftar’s forces. The UN said it had also received reports of acts of retribution and revenge by GNA forces since they entered Tarhouna.
