Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan meets with Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi on Aug. 12, 2026. (Credit: Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
Libya has been split for more than a decade between two rival governmental powers, one in the east and one in the west. But on Wednesday, for the first time, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited both. In Tripoli, home to Ankara’s allied government, he met Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh before visiting Turkish forces deployed in the country. He then made an unprecedented visit to Benghazi, where he met eastern Libya’s strongman Khalifa Haftar and his son Saddam, who has been gaining increasing influence.“Our visit has been a concrete manifestation of our ‘one Libya’ policy, which makes no distinction between Libya’s west, east and south,” Fidan said. The statement sums up the evolution of Turkey’s strategy in Libya.When Haftar, the powerful military commander whose Libyan National Army controls large parts of the country’s...
Libya has been split for more than a decade between two rival governmental powers, one in the east and one in the west. But on Wednesday, for the first time, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan visited both. In Tripoli, home to Ankara’s allied government, he met Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh before visiting Turkish forces deployed in the country. He then made an unprecedented visit to Benghazi, where he met eastern Libya’s strongman Khalifa Haftar and his son Saddam, who has been gaining increasing influence.“Our visit has been a concrete manifestation of our ‘one Libya’ policy, which makes no distinction between Libya’s west, east and south,” Fidan said. The statement sums up the evolution of Turkey’s strategy in Libya.When Haftar, the powerful military commander whose Libyan National Army controls large parts of...
Hacking Lebanese Politics #36: Lebanon and the abolition of the death penalty
