Erdogan announced the presence of Wagner PMCs in Libya and his readiness to send Turkish troops there to protect Tripoli from falling

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a speech in Ankara, announced the presence of mercenaries of the Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner in Libya and his readiness to send Turkish troops to this country at the request of the Libyan Government of National Accord (GNA). The live broadcast was carried out by the Habertürk TV channel, and the Turkish BBC service published a transcript of the fragment.

"You know that Russia has the Wagner company. Russia sent these security forces to Libya. If Libya sends us such a request, we, especially after the conclusion of the military security treaty, can send a sufficient number of our units," Erdogan said, words cited by the Telegram channel “Turkey Agenda”.

Erdogan also invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to hold a telephone conversation to discuss the situation surrounding the offensive of Russian-backed Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar on Tripoli. The call for dialogue came amid fears that the Libyan capital could fall with Russian support by the New Year, writes Kommersant .

Officially, representatives of the Libyan army refuse to talk about any time frame for the end of the operation, given that all previous forecasts have not come true. According to the Turkish president, if Moscow’s position regarding Libya does not change, this country could turn into “a second Syria.”

Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov confirmed the preparation of a telephone conversation between Putin and Erdogan. According to Peskov, Russia welcomes all initiatives that could contribute to a settlement in Libya. However, Tripoli does not believe this.

Thus, GNA Foreign Minister Mohammed Siyala did not rule out that Tripoli could fall due to the military support provided by Russian mercenaries to Khalifa Haftar. The politician believes that despite Moscow’s words about supporting the UN Security Council’s initiatives for a settlement in Libya, “the problem is that Russia says one thing, and then does something else on the field.” “Of course, Libya is of strategic importance for Russia, and it seeks to gain a foothold in the country,” he emphasized.

The position of the NTC is fully supported in Washington. In recent weeks, the United States has repeatedly accused Moscow of using the Libyan conflict for its own interests, and the US Congress is planning to introduce new sanctions against Russia regarding the Wagner PMC and associated entities.

According to the UN Secretary General's special envoy for Libya, Ghassan Salameh, tensions in relations between the United States and Russia in connection with the possible participation of PMCs in the Libyan conflict have become one of the obstacles to his work. He refused to confirm or deny the presence of Russian mercenaries in Libya, noting that weapons are “coming from everywhere” in Libya, and also drew attention to the growth of American interests in Libyan issues.

If until recently the United States was mainly concerned with the “fight against terrorism and the normal flow of oil production” in Libya, then in November American diplomats met with both representatives of Tripoli and Khalifa Haftar. Against the backdrop of these negotiations, accusations were invariably made against Russia of interfering in the Libyan conflict.

According to media estimates, the United States has long been hoping to set Moscow and Ankara at odds, not without reason believing that their alliance has radically changed the situation in Syria. Initially, Russia and Türkiye held different positions on the Syrian conflict, but considered cooperation mutually beneficial. As a result of this alliance, which Tehran also joined, it was possible to return a significant part of the territory of Syria to the control of Damascus, as well as to prevent full-scale military conflicts in the north of this country. In addition, the work of the Syrian Constitutional Committee was launched.

However, relationships among partners are not easy. So on Tuesday, during the next round of negotiations in the “Astana format”, the special representative of the Russian President for Syria, Alexander Lavrentyev, commenting on the latest escalation in Idlib and the shelling of the border areas, noted that this is Turkey’s area of ​​responsibility. In his opinion, it is necessary to influence “Turkish partners so that they carry out appropriate work with those armed groups that carry out such a provocation.”

He recalled that the day before, artillery shelling of residential areas of Aleppo was carried out from Idlib, as a result of which civilians were killed. “This is unacceptable. Of course, this needs to be stopped,” he emphasized. At the same time, Syrian opposition media have reported in recent days about increased bombing of Idlib by the government army with the support of Russian aviation, during which civilians were also injured. There are other issues that cause disagreement between the parties.

Nevertheless, until now, all three participants in the “Astana format” and, first of all, Türkiye and Russia have always found a compromise. Experts do not rule out that the field for deals will now include Libya. It is noteworthy that the desire to avoid the “Libyan scenario” was one of the reasons for Russia’s intervention in the Syrian conflict. Now Ankara is talking about the inadmissibility of the “Syrian scenario” in Libya. As Oytun Orhan, an employee of the Center for Strategic Studies in the Middle East (ORSAM) in Ankara, believes, in the Libyan issue Russia and Turkey find themselves on opposite sides of the barricades and if Ankara sends its military to Libya, Russia and Turkey may again find themselves in confrontation, as has already happened in Syria. In addition, the situation in Libya affects Egypt, which is considered one of Russia’s most important partners in the Middle East and Africa.

Although the Russian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly denied the presence of Wagner PMC mercenaries in the region, in early October it was reported that several dozen Russian mercenaries were killed during an air raid in Libya. The media managed to find out the names of several victims - Artem Nevyantsev with the call sign "Hulk", Ignat Borichev ("Benya") and Denis with the call sign "Vector" (surname unknown) from the village of Kushchevskaya, as well as 27-year-old Gleb Zverev from Yoshkar-Ola.

In addition, during the fighting, the commander of the Wagner PMC detachment, Alexander Kuznetsov , was seriously wounded, who was captured in a photograph with Putin at a reception in the Kremlin in December 2016, when he and three other Wagner PMC fighters were presented with state awards.

Earlier, Bloomberg reported that in early September , over a hundred more Wagner PMC fighters arrived in Libya to provide support to the Libyan National Army (LNA) of General Khalifa Haftar, who besieged the capital of the republic, Tripoli. The city itself is controlled by the internationally recognized Government of National Accord. He is supported by the Western coalition led by the United States and Türkiye. At the beginning of March of this year, the British newspaper The Telegraph reported that the number of Wagner PMC mercenaries in Libya at that time was about 300 people.