The gains that await Turkey in Libya

One of the photographs from President Tayyip Erdoğan's meeting with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez el-Sarraj, who was hosted at the Beştepe Complex the other day, was quite remarkable.

Erdoğan was showing his guest the verse "La Galiba illallah / There is no winner other than Allah" written in one of the paintings hanging on the wall of the room where the meeting was being held.

As other photos showed, faces were all smiles in this latest meeting.

It was no surprise that this should be the case following the fact that the course of affairs in Libya had changed since that time, the Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Sarraj managed to move to the offense and broke the siege around Tripoli, while the forces of Haftar began to retreat.

However, last year, when UN-recognized Sarraj came to Ankara to ask for support (April 2019), things were progressing very badly for him in Libya. He was fighting against the clock to halt the overthrow of his government by Putschist warlord Haftar’s foreign-backed forces who were at Tripoli’s doorstep.

Sarraj said then in Ankara, "We have nowhere to turn to but Turkey," as he came to ask for support.

In those days, indeed, all the players stood beside Haftar, and it was not easy to turn things back to their current state based on this support.

Yesterday afternoon, the latest news from Libya, showed that Turkey-backed GNA forces continued to make gains.

While entering the city center of Tarhuna in the southwest of Tripoli from 4 axes, there were reports that Haftar forces ran away like headless chicken.

During the day, Sarraj’s spokesperson explained that after Tarhuna, they set their sights on Sirte, Jofra and the oil fields in the south in the context of the ongoing operation called Volcano of Rage.

Speaking of oil fields, let's return to the Erdoğan-Sarraj summit and recall the statements made after that meeting.

During the press conference, after thanking the historic and courageous stance by Turkey, Sarraj said that "the Libyan government wants to see Turkish companies in Libya during the reconstruction of the country. He added Libya has a great opportunity to establish constructive cooperation with Turkey due to its natural and human resources.”

"We are aiming to improve our cooperation, including exploration and drilling, to take advantage of the natural riches in the Eastern Mediterranean," said President Erdoğan.

Looking at these words, it brings to one’s mind the agreement to empower the maritime borders reached at the end of last November.

With the threat to the administration in Tripoli gone, this will also allow for new steps to be taken in line with this agreement.

Thus, Turkey, by taking a new step, is within its legal rights to search for oil and gas south of the islands of Crete, Rhodes and Karpathos.

Meanwhile, Athens, hoping that that Turkey wouldn’t intervene in Libya, has begun to foam at the mouth again as it has done since the day the bilateral agreement was signed.

Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos, threatened that in the case of a provocation, they are ready to do anything to protect the sovereignty of the country, including launching a military intervention against Turkey.

Sarraj’s quoted above statement, which speaks of opportunities for Turkey in Libya, means there will be no to limit to the new oil and gas exploration activities in the Mediterranean in the period to come.

Sarraj was quoted as saying, "Resources-rich Libya is ready to cooperate with Turkey." According to this message, we can expect there is much more to come.

The other day, Presidential Spokesman Ibrahim Kalın addressed these issues, when asked about claims that Turkey will begin to extract Libyan oil, Kalın said that the Libyan government made such a proposal to Turkey, and that the current agreements allow for such a step.

Sarraj’s latest statements echo these words.

Meanwhile, economic benefits of the Mediterranean's underground riches have become all the more important to Turkey.

We know that new funding for exploration have been put in place to close the foreign currency deficit, which is about $ 50/55 billion annually, as there are new quests and trends that are emerging in the economy.

In this sense, we can see through the ongoing efforts that a lot of work has been conducted than before in bid to first explore the underground riches of the Mediterranean, then extract and deliver them to global markets.

But if a new area of cooperation opens beyond short-term and tangible gains in terms of Libya's existing wealth of natural resources mentioned by Sarraj, this will translate into additional, curcial gains for Turkey.