Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul on Friday as the outgoing Libyan premier signals intent to boost military cooperation after a recent wave of violence in the Libyan capital, which threatened to dethrone him from power.
Accompanied by the Governor of the Central Bank of Libya Saddek Elkaber, Dbeibeh discussed with Erdogan “a number of economic dossiers in the public and private sectors, as well as increasing military cooperation between the two countries through training and development for all military and support forces,” according to a statement by Dbeibeh’s media office.
“At the end of the meeting, it was agreed on a work program between the two countries that includes military and energy cooperation, and the return of Turkish companies to complete the suspended projects,” reads the statement from the Libyan premier’s office.
This is Dbeibeh’s second trip oversees after violence erupted a week ago in Tripoli between armed groups, causing the death of at least 32 people while 159 were injured, according to the Ministry of Health.
The clashes involved armed groups that back Dbeibeh’s government, against forces of Fathi Bashagha, who was selected as interim premier by Libya’s House of Representatives last February after Dbeibeh failed to organize national elections in December 2021 as per the UN-led peace plan.
Turkey considers Dbeibeh as Libya’s legitimate leader and has a military presence in the country. In June, the Turkish parliament extended for another 18 months a mandate that allows the deployment of Turkish troops to Libya. The mandate first came into force in January 2020 following a security and military agreement with Libya’s UN-backed administration in Tripoli in November 2019.