Turkey's intel chief visits Libya following trip by CIA head
Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan paid a visit to Libya only days after his American counterpart, William Burns, traveled to the conflict-torn country.
Libya hosted two intelligence chiefs within a span of a week, with Turkey’s intelligence chief Hakan Fidan paying a visit to Tripoli Tuesday after CIA head William Burns visited the war-torn country last week.
Turkish and Libyan media reported that Fidan met with Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah after he traveled to Libya from Sudan where he had met with Sudan's military leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
Head of #Turkey's National Intelligence Organization Hakan Fidan arrives in #Tripoli and holds talks with Prime Minister Abdel Hamid Dbeibah pic.twitter.com/cGN7mBIBLW
— The Libya Observer (@Lyobserver) January 17, 2023
Fidan's visit came after a Tripoli court last week ruled against a hydrocarbon exploration deal that the Dbeibah-led Government of National Unity (GNU) signed with Ankara last year. Citing a judicial source, Reuters reported that the court suspended the deal that aimed to allow joint Turkish-Libyan exploration for gas and oil in the Eastern Mediterranean as part of a controversial maritime demarcation agreement between Ankara and Tripoli in 2019. The deal has turned into a source of tensions between Turkey, Egypt and Greece over conflicting claims in the Eastern Mediterranean. Libya’s Tobruk-based parliament has stopped short of ratifying the deal.
