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. 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.
