BERLIN/ANKARA, Nov 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Turkey forced German soldiers to abandon an operation aimed at enforcing the Libya arms embargo in the Mediterranean, the Bundeswehr Military said.
According to the Joint Military Command, German marines boarded a suspicious Turkish cargo ship on Sunday to check its cargo. But shortly afterwards, Turkey as the flag state vetoed the search and the German soldiers then had to abort the mission.
The German Defence Ministry said that “no forbidden goods were detected onboard the carrier” up until the point the check was called off.
Germany has since August been part of the European Union’s Irini mission, which seeks to stop shipments of weapons to conflict-ridden Libya.
The mission also seeks to tackle the smuggling of oil and fuel.
German marines abseiled down onto the vessel from a helicopter about 200 kilometres north of Benghazi, after no objection was voiced to the search by Turkey within four hours, a Defence Ministry spokesman said on Monday in Berlin.
He stressed that the decision to search the vessel had not been taken on board Germany’s Hamburg frigate, but by the Irini mission command in Rome.
Since there had been no objection at first, “everything had gone smoothly in terms of procedure,” said a spokeswoman for the Foreign Office.
Libya has been in turmoil since long-time ruler Moamer Gaddafi was toppled in 2011. The country became a proxy battleground for rival forces and foreign powers have been drawn into the conflict.
Turkey is the main backer of Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, led by Prime Minister Fayez Serraj, and has sent military personnel and equipment to back it up.
Serraj’s rival, military strongman Khalifa Haftar, is backed by Russia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, with reports suggesting he also receives military support.
The warring parties in Libya this month began UN-brokered direct political talks in a bid to find a time frame for national elections.
German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Monday that Germany, Britain, Italy and France supported this dialogue and welcomed efforts to draw up a road map for elections in December 2021.
This is an important step towards “re-establishing Libya’s sovereignty,” he told reporters.
