Türkiye Says it Seeks to ‘Build Good Relations’ with Various Libyan Parties

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and the Vice Presidential Council, Abdullah Al-Lafi, in August (Photo: Libyan Parliament)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and the Vice Presidential Council, Abdullah Al-Lafi, in August (Photo: Libyan Parliament)
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Türkiye Says it Seeks to ‘Build Good Relations’ with Various Libyan Parties

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and the Vice Presidential Council, Abdullah Al-Lafi, in August (Photo: Libyan Parliament)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan received the Speaker of the Libyan House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh, and the Vice Presidential Council, Abdullah Al-Lafi, in August (Photo: Libyan Parliament)

Türkiye has expressed willingness to build good relations with all Libyan parties, revealing its intention to send a parliamentary delegation to visit Tripoli and the east of the country.

Turkish Foreign Minister Melvut Cavusoglu said that his country sought to establish relations with various parties in Libya out of its keenness to achieve security and stability.

In press statements on Wednesday, he said: “Those, who were criticizing Türkiye’s presence in Libya have today praised the effective role it plays in this country, and started saying that Türkiye is a guarantor of security and stability there.”

Cavusoglu added that international relations were constantly changing, noting that Turkish foreign policy “adapts to changing circumstances, in line with its national interests.”

Ankara has been recently seeking to achieve a balance in its policy between western and eastern Libya, but adheres to supporting the Interim Government of National Unity, headed by Abdel Hamid Dbeibeh, against the Fathi Bashagha government.

Türkiye sought to bring the two sides together in a meeting last March, and hosted separate talks with Turkish officials earlier this month.

While Dbeibeh has publicly met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, along with the defense and foreign ministers, and the Turkish intelligence chief, Bashagha and Ankara have not disclosed the level of the meetings recently held in Libya.

During his meeting with Dbeibeh, Erdogan stressed the need to preserve the security and safety of the Libyan capital from any military attempts or attacks. He added that change could only happen through elections.

Dbeibeh, for his part, said that the Turkish side underlined the need to hold elections under the supervision of his government, after which power would be handed over to the elected party.

He also noted that his meetings with Turkish officials focused on political, economic and military affairs.

On the other hand, Bashagha described his meetings with Turkish officials as positive. He pointed to the need to cooperate with all internal political bodies and forces, and with UN Envoy Abdullah Batali, to help the Libyan government carry out its tasks.

The visits of Bashagha and Dbeibeh to Turkey came after days of bloody clashes in Tripoli between forces affiliated with the unity government and others loyal to the Bashagha government, which resulted in the killing of 32 people, including civilians.

Reports said that the Turkish drones supplied to the Dbeibeh government had turned the clashes in the latter’s favor.



Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
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Amnesty Accuses Israel of 'Live-streamed Genocide' against Gaza Palestinians

TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike on the Yafa school building, a school-turned-shelter, in Gaza City on April 23, 2025. (Photo by Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)

Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Israel of committing a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza by forcibly displacing most of the population and deliberately creating a humanitarian catastrophe.

In its annual report, Amnesty charged that Israel had acted with "specific intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza, thus committing genocide".

Israel has rejected accusations of "genocide" from Amnesty, other rights groups and some states in its war in Gaza.

The conflict erupted after the Palestinian group Hamas's deadly October 7, 2023 attacks inside Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Hamas also abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel in response launched a relentless bombardment of the Gaza Strip and a ground operation that according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory has left at least 52,243 dead.

"Since 7 October 2023, when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages, the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide," Amnesty's secretary general Agnes Callamard said in the introduction to the report.

"States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools," she added.

'Extreme levels of suffering'

Gaza's civil defense agency said early Tuesday that four people were killed and others injured in an Israeli air strike on displaced persons' tents near the Al-Iqleem area in Southern Gaza.

The agency earlier warned fuel shortages meant it had been forced to suspend eight out of 12 emergency vehicles in Southern Gaza, including ambulances.

The lack of fuel "threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of citizens and displaced persons in shelter centers," it said in a statement.

Amnesty's report said the Israeli campaign had left most of the Palestinians of Gaza "displaced, homeless, hungry, at risk of life-threatening diseases and unable to access medical care, power or clean water".

Amnesty said that throughout 2024 it had "documented multiple war crimes by Israel, including direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, and indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks".

It said Israel's actions forcibly displaced 1.9 million Palestinians, around 90 percent of Gaza's population, and "deliberately engineered an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe".

Even as protesters hit the streets in Western capitals, "the world's governments individually and multilaterally failed repeatedly to take meaningful action to end the atrocities and were slow even in calling for a ceasefire".

Meanwhile, Amnesty also sounded alarm over Israeli actions in the occupied Palestinian territory of the West Bank, and repeated an accusation that Israel was employing a system of "apartheid".

"Israel's system of apartheid became increasingly violent in the occupied West Bank, marked by a sharp increase in unlawful killings and state-backed attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian civilians," it said.

Heba Morayef, Amnesty director for the Middle East and North Africa region, denounced "the extreme levels of suffering that Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to endure on a daily basis over the past year" as well as "the world's complete inability or lack of political will to put a stop to it".