Türkiye Again Refuses Inspection of One of its Ships Heading to Libya

IRINI said Türkiye on Sunday rejected a request to inspect the ship “MV MATILDE A”. (MarineTraffic)
IRINI said Türkiye on Sunday rejected a request to inspect the ship “MV MATILDE A”. (MarineTraffic)
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Türkiye Again Refuses Inspection of One of its Ships Heading to Libya

IRINI said Türkiye on Sunday rejected a request to inspect the ship “MV MATILDE A”. (MarineTraffic)
IRINI said Türkiye on Sunday rejected a request to inspect the ship “MV MATILDE A”. (MarineTraffic)

Türkiye again refused to allow the European Maritime Operation IRINI team to inspect one of its ships heading to Libya.

“Türkiye on Sunday again rejected a request to inspect the ship MV MATILDE A in accordance with Security Council Resolution No. 2292/2016 on the arms embargo on Libya,” IRINI wrote on its official X account.

The operation was launched on March 31, 2020 following the first Berlin Conference on Libya. It was mandated by the European Council to carry out as its core task the implementation of the UN arms embargo on Libya in resolution 2292 of 2016 and resolution 2526 of 2020, which are binding for all EU Member States, including Türkiye.

This is the 12th time that Ankara has prevented an IRINI team from boarding a merchant ship. Türkiye blames IRINI of besieging the interim Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli.

The operation had shared dozens of special reports with the UN Panel of Experts on Libya. Most of these reports referred to violations or possible violations of the arms embargo and oil smuggling activities in the west and in the east of the country.

Since the launch of the maritime mission, Türkiye has rejected operation IRINI, describing it as biased and of working for the benefit of the Sudanese Army.

On several occasions, Ankara has clashed with IRINI teams because of their insistence to inspect Turkish ships heading to Libya on suspicion that they were carrying weapons to the former Government of National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez al-Sarraj and then the current GNU, headed by Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah.

Since the beginning of operation, IRINI has examined more than 1,000 suspected ships through information via radio calls. It also carried more than 500 visits with the captain’s approval to more than 500 merchant ships and inspected several suspicious flights.

The operation aims to counter illicit arms trafficking, supporting the implementation of the arms embargo on Libya based on the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, to gather intelligence on oil smuggling, in particular its impact on the Libyan economy and its possible use to finance the arms market; to contribute to the disruption of the business model of migrant smuggling by gathering intelligence by air and sharing it with Frontex and relevant national authorities; to support the development of the search and rescue capacity of relevant Libyan institutions through training.

Türkiye has sent thousands of its troops and thousands of mercenaries from pro-Turkish armed factions in Syria, to fight alongside forces in western Libya.

To this day, Ankara maintains thousands of members of its armed forces in Libya, along with about 7,000 Syrian mercenaries from the so-called “Syrian National Army.”

Despite international demands to withdraw mercenaries and foreign forces, Türkiye says its military presence in Libya is “legitimate and its forces should not be viewed as foreign forces.”

United Nations reports had previously accused SADAT, a Turkish defense consultancy, of violating an international arms embargo by deploying thousands of Syrian fighters to Libya.

The company has denied the allegations.



Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
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Trump Administration Ends Some USAID Contracts Providing Lifesaving Aid across the Middle East

A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)
A USAID flag flutters outside, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, DC, US, February 3, 2025. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has notified the World Food Program and other partners that it has terminated some of the last remaining lifesaving humanitarian programs across the Middle East, a US official and a UN official told The Associated Press on Monday.

The projects were being canceled “for the convenience of the US Government” at the direction of Jeremy Lewin, a top lieutenant at Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whom the Trump administration appointed to oversee and finish dismantling the US Agency for International Development, according to letters sent to USAID partners and viewed by the AP.

About 60 letters canceling contracts were sent over the past week, including for major projects with the World Food Program, the world’s largest provider of food aid, a USAID official said. An official with the United Nations in the Middle East said the World Food Program received termination letters for US-funded programs in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

Both officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

Some of the last remaining US funding for key programs in Yemen, Somalia, Afghanistan and the southern African nation of Zimbabwe also was affected, including for those providing food, water, medical care and shelter for people displaced by war, the USAID official said.

The UN official said the groups that would be hit hardest include Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. Also affected are programs supporting vulnerable Lebanese people and providing irrigation systems inside Syria, a country emerging from a brutal civil war and struggling with poverty and hunger.

In Yemen, another war-divided country that is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters, the terminated aid apparently includes food that has already arrived in distribution centers, the UN official said.

Aid officials were just learning of many of the cuts Monday and said they were struggling to understand their scope.

Another of the notices, sent Friday, abruptly pulled US funding for a program with strong support in Congress that had sent young Afghan women overseas for schooling amid Taliban prohibitions on women’s education, said an administrator for that project, which is run by Texas A&M University.

The young women would now face return to Afghanistan, where their lives would be in danger, according to that administrator, who was not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The Trump administration had pledged to spare those most urgent, lifesaving programs in its cutting of aid and development programs through the State Department and USAID.

The Republican administration already has canceled thousands of USAID contracts as it dismantles USAID, which it accuses of wastefulness and of advancing liberal causes.

The newly terminated contracts were among about 900 surviving programs that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had notified Congress he intended to preserve, the USAID official said.

There was no immediate comment from the State Department.