Trump warns Turkey against ‘interference’

Turkey’s parliament has approved the deployment of troops to Libya aimed at shoring up the UN-backed government in Tripoli, sparking a blunt warning from US President Donald Trump against any “foreign interference” in the war-torn country.

Libya has been beset by chaos since a Nato-backed uprising toppled and killed dictator Moamer Kaddafi in 2011, with rival administrations in the east and the west vying for power.

The beleaguered Tripoli government, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, has been under sustained attack since April by military strongman General Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Turkey’s regional rivals -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

In response to the prospect that Ankara might intervene after Thursday’s vote, Trump had told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a call “that foreign interference is complicating the situation in Libya,” White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said in a statement.

Egypt also strongly condemned the Turkish vote, saying it amounted to a “flagrant violation of international law and Security Council resolutions on Libya”, while Israel, Cyprus and Greece denounced a “dangerous threat to regional stability”.

Libya’s elected parliament in the east -- allied with Haftar -- called Turkey’s prospective military intervention “high treason”.

President Erdogan is due to receive Russian President Vladimir Putin next Wednesday to inaugurate a new gas pipeline and Libya is expected to be a key topic of discussion.

Erdogan has repeatedly accused Russia of sending private mercenaries to support Haftar’s forces, though this has been denied by Moscow.