Libyan youthtrample the Turkish flag and irritates Ankara
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Alaina
- . July 8, 2021
- . Update: July 8, 2021 7:12 pm
Young Libyans once again protested against Turkey’s presence and interference in their country’s internal affairs. While the Prime Minister of the new National Unity government, Abdel Hamid al Dabaiba, was visiting Tobruk to participate in budget discussions in the House of Representatives on Monday, young Libyans threw the Turkish flag, trampled by the government convoy, into the street. The extreme act follows the repeated requests by the Libyan side to Recep Tayyip Erdogan to withdraw its forces and mercenaries.
“Our capital is occupied,” activists say on social media, referring to Turkish mercenaries in western Libya. The eastern city of Tobruk launched the “Turkish under feet” hashtag, posting the Turkish flag crumpled by the passage of cars on social media. An episode that greatly annoyed the Turkish regime and the local Muslim Brotherhood. The Turkish Foreign Ministry strongly condemned what it called “the ugly act against the Turkish flag in front of the temporary building of the House of Representatives in the city of Tobruk, Libya.”
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ambassador Tanju Bilgic published a written statement on the subject. “We strongly condemn the heinous acts against our flag that took place in front of the temporary building of the House of Representatives in the Libyan city of Tobruk during the budget talks held on 5 July 2021”. The note says. “As soon as we learned of this monstrous act, our embassy in Tripoli took the necessary written and verbal steps with the Libyan Foreign Ministry and demanded that the necessary measures be taken to prevent such provocations and incidents from happening again in the future.
The action in question has targeted the Turkish-Libyan brotherhood. This attack on our flag, which represents our independence and our sacred values, will never be successful, and above all, it will receive the right response from the friendly and fraternal people of Libya”. He added the Ankara Ministry in a note, ignoring and omitting the legitimate demands of the Libyan people.
For months, the joint military committee (JMC 5 + 5) demands the departure of all mercenaries and foreign forces from Libyan territory. The United Nations Security Council also renewed a binding request but was rejected until today by Erdogan. The Ankara regime claims to have sent its mercenaries to Libya at the request of the previous internationally recognized Libyan government. In addition, Turkey has reached controversial military cooperation, defense, and maritime border demarcation agreements.
According to previous UN reports, there are about 20,000 foreign fighters in Libya, most of them linked to Turkey and Russia, the latter intervening to support Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar and his Libyan National Army (LNA), contributing to the division among the Libyans but effectively maintaining the ceasefire in the North African country.
