Before Turkey arrives… the haste of Haftar and his masters

President Erdoğan and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who came together in Istanbul for the TürkAkım opening ceremony, also put the Syria and Libya issues on their agenda. One of the most important and expected results of these talks was the emphasis placed on the importance of Turkey and Russia being in dialogue and cooperation in Libya, and the more concrete result was the call made to the parties for a ceasefire in Libya beginning on January 12.

That this call was voiced by Turkey and Russia was undoubtedly valuable in terms of showing the good intentions of the two countries, but, looked at against the real situation on the ground, the call contained an oddity. Because there are no two symmetrical parties fighting each other and attacking each other. On the contrary, there is an aggressor in constant attack, with air-strike weapons he obtained through a coup and with foreign legionnaires gathered from here and there, to overthrow with an asymmetric force an administration that came to office through elections to represent the Libyan people by legitimate procedures and is recognized by the international community.

The legitimate administration in Tripoli, for its part, is busy defending itself and resisting the invasion of its country by the coup-plotting retired general Haftar.

Instead of telling both sides to cease fire, it would in fact be much more fitting to issue a strong warning to the attacking side, commanding it to abandon its aggression. Because what the Tripoli administration is doing against the attacking side is nothing other than defending itself. Since it could not fully do even that, it requested help first from the UN, then from Italy and Turkey. The help expected from neither the UN nor Italy came, but Turkey responded positively to this request of the legitimate administration, which it had from the outset recognized in Libya together with the international community and with which it was maintaining relations.

Haftar's presence on the scene... From wherever you look, a complete criminal. A criminal against humanity, a war criminal, a warlord who steals Libya's resources on behalf of others and tries to take his own share. He has no support among the Libyan people. Looking at the map of what he is said to control in Libya, compared with the legitimate administration he appears to dominate nearly ninety percent of Libya, but 95 percent of those areas are not inhabited areas anyway. Therefore control of them is a matter only for an air-strike force.

Haftar obtains the aggressive occupying force in his hands with the material support provided by the UAE and the logistical and military support provided by Egypt. Haftar, who massacres the Libyan people with legionnaires gathered from many parts of Africa through the UAE's financial and intriguing support, has not the slightest counterpart among the Libyan people. In any case, after a clash in Chad in which he lost and was taken prisoner, he made his way to the USA, and is a US citizen who spent 20 years of his life there.

Therefore at the moment there are not two Libyan parties in conflict with each other, trying to get each other to accept their theses because they are in dispute, trying to share Libya together. There is an aggressive, transgressing force that is trying to take the land of the Libyans from their hands and, to do so, trying to use the most repulsive and merciless methods of occupation, and there is a Libyan people trying to defend themselves, who, because they cannot do this with their own means, cry for help to the civilized world, to the modern, democratic international community so respectful of human rights.

The picture is this clear, the equation this simple. Turkey, within this picture, takes its place on the most moral side, on the side of the most oppressed, of him whose right is trampled, and at his request it takes its place in this equation on the most ethical and most legitimate basis. In this picture nobody should have the face to accuse Turkey, or even to criticize it. But the world is, unfortunately, a world of the shameless. The bandit is determined to be ruler of the world.

Indeed, while Libya's legitimate administration, the Tripoli government, immediately responded positively to the ceasefire call of Turkey and Russia, the coup-plotting general Haftar announced that he did not recognize the ceasefire call. It was not, of course, a surprising reaction. Because his eyes are covered with the ambition to seize Libya, and in doing so he is not aware that he is adding crime to his crimes.

The UAE, France and even Russia, who support him, are exploiting this bandit's eagerness to dominate Libya. In fact they will not let him eat Libya either. While driving him onto the field to commit all crimes, they do not neglect at the same time to keep his files. Haftar too, with the approach of all greedy, ambitious men, thinks that by seizing Tripoli this way he can dominate and govern Libya. Yet even if he succeeds, they will not let him govern Libya. His only role is to sideline Libya's administration, which rests on its own people, and to open Libya to division among his masters.

Of course, Haftar is someone whose master is not one but many. Because he does not rely on his own people, he is open to every kind of outside help. This in fact makes him terribly weak and without will. His not accepting the ceasefire is not his own will but the will of his masters. Because, having reached the final phase of an investment they have been making for years, they would not want a call arriving from Istanbul to spoil their business.

That is why a rush to do what they can before Turkey arrives has gripped his masters. If I were in their place, I would now start thinking about how they themselves will escape the crimes that they will have him commit in this rush. Because with Turkey's entry onto the field, the rush that has overtaken Haftar now shows on their faces too.

On this stage, is not the imperialist, and those who bray and bark on his behalf, plain enough?