BEIRUT, LEBANON (9:20 A.M.) – Egypt responded on Saturday, to the statements from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday, in which he said that Egypt’s steps in Libya are illegal. The Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying, “Today, July 18, Ahmed Hafez, the official spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed his amazement at the statements of some Turkish officials about the legitimacy of demanding elected and societal Libyan entities to support Egypt in the face of terrorism and extremism, which is being brought to Libya from Syria after it was established in Syria along the Turkish-Syrian border, and in various parts of the Arab region.”“The spokesman also expressed surprise at the adventure of the Turkish administration in the capabilities of the Turkish people through intervention and involvement in the crises of the Arab countries to deepen and complicate them and to conquer certain currents, not because of their popularity, but simply because of their ideological dependency on those who seek to promote them in a way that wastes the resources of the Turkish people.”“The Foreign Ministry spokesman expressed Egypt’s rejection of Turkish political and military interference in the Arab affairs, which lacks any legal basis and even violates Security Council resolutions, whether it is in Iraq, in Syria or in Libya, stressing that the Arab peoples refuse any efforts or Ambitions for those who want to run their affairs to achieve interests and goals they have nothing to do with. On Friday, Erdogan said, as quoted by Reuters, “Egypt’s steps in Libya and its support for the commander of eastern Libyan forces, Khalifa Haftar, are illegal.”The Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, said the day before yesterday, Thursday, that his country will not stand idle in the face of any direct threat to Egyptian and Libyan national security, after the Libyan parliament called for Cairo, this week, to intervene militarily in the conflict. According to the Egyptian presidential statement, El-Sisi added, “The main goal of the Egyptian efforts at all levels towards Libya is to activate the free will of the Libyan people for a better future for their country and for future generations of their children.”The Egyptian President stated that “the red lines that he announced before are mainly a call for peace and an end to the conflict in Libya.”This came during the Egyptian President’s meeting with the sheikhs and notables of the Libyan tribes under the slogan “Egypt and Libya are one people and one destiny.”Advertisements

Source: Libya Today July 19, 2020 06:33 UTC