What does the Berlin Conference promise for Libya?

The conference to be held in Berlin on Germany's initiative to secure a ceasefire in Libya and contribute to a political solution, had Haftar failed at the last moment to abide by the ceasefire decision, would have had no meaning at all and would have gone on record as one of those meetings, like the earlier ones, with no chance of producing any result. Because Haftar, who is carrying out his attacks to seize Tripoli, does not want a party to negotiate with, a party to agree to govern Libya together with.

He wants to seize the whole of Libya without any dialogue, and had Turkey not entered the field, he might perhaps have achieved this today. Haftar has no reason that could justify this aggression of his, but he does have a cause, and that is the armed force he is using, which has been put into his hands.

Had it not been for the agreement between the legitimate Government of National Accord and Turkey at the last moment, Haftar would have taken what he wanted and would have reduced the Berlin Conference to a dead letter without its even convening. That is why we can say with ease that it is Turkey that has also saved the Berlin Conference from becoming a dead letter at the last moment.

Now there is a meaning in gathering in Berlin for Libya. Because Haftar is facing a force that he could not destroy and that he now thinks he can no longer destroy. There is no chance of his not attending the Berlin Conference, since, with everything going well until now, Turkey has spoiled a sack of figs for him.

Turkey's presence in the field has changed all the balances. The international community had been content to watch with crocodile tears the destruction of the Tripoli administration, whose legitimacy it recognizes, by a force it regards as illegitimate. The UN, although it declared Haftar a war criminal, did nothing to stop him. Yet one addressee of the help the Tripoli government requested from Turkey was also the UN. But Turkey delivered this help, which the UN could not deliver.

In Berlin, the highest representative of international ethics and values is Turkey. What it wants is only the halting of aggression and for Libya to be left to the Libyans. If a call emerges for all foreign elements to leave Libya, Turkey will be the first to support it too, on condition that everyone is sincere.

Egypt, which says it is involved because it has a very long border with Libya, will be clearly reminded of this fact: sharing a common border does not give you the right to occupy a country, and certainly in no way gives you the right to export your own coup-plotting model there.

By behaving this way, Sisi is also becoming an accomplice of Haftar, who is committing crimes against humanity against his own people. In the model that is being sought to be imposed on Libya through Haftar, peoples have no importance whatsoever. Before everyone's eyes, a people is being subjected to captivity by force of arms, through massacres, and its lands are being occupied.

SITTING AT THE TABLE WITH SISI AND ASSAD?

Addressing those in the Egyptian media who are running a hostility campaign against Turkey using Turkey's agreement with Libya as a pretext, we said, "Turkey is not an enemy of Egypt or of any Arab-Muslim country; in fact the two countries have no reason that requires them to be enemies of each other; just imagine that the very same agreement made with Libya were made with Egypt," and in saying so we point to the irrational stance of the mindset that is currently governing Egypt. We say, "If there were a sane administration in Egypt, it would not go and sign, merely to harm Turkey, an agreement with the Greek Cypriots and the Greeks to the detriment of its own country." The Egyptian administration is currently making agreements with others contrary to its own country's interests because of its opposition to Turkey. This has no benefit for Egypt, only harm.

Moreover, on top of the agreements it made, the Turkey-Libya agreement won back for the Egyptian people the rights that Egypt itself had given up in favor of Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration.

Because we said this, many people spoke of our having made a U-turn, almost as if expressing repentance for our policy until now. Not only that, but, now that the door of repentance and the road of the U-turn have been opened, God bless the abundance of those who also recommend sitting at the same table with Assad.

How eager they are to sit at the same table with bloody-handed dictators!

Personally, my words about Egypt were addressed not to Turkey but to the Egyptian media and the Egyptian people. What we say on behalf of Turkey is merely to remind, invoking also the witness of our common history and interests, that on our side there is not the slightest feeling of hostility toward the people of Egypt or Libya. Unfortunately the Egyptian administration does not represent the interests of its people in any way.

Turkey's stance toward Sisi and Assad is not a stance toward either the Egyptian people or the Syrian people.

With the blood of his own people, whom he has cruelly slaughtered and still goes on slaughtering every day, on his hands, what is there to talk about with Assad, at what table, with what face could one sit, and what could be asked of him?

On what subject, and what, will Turkey discuss with the coup-plotter Sisi, who never holds back from being in every kind of plot against Turkey, and whose word not even his own supporters trust?

If those who invite us to talk with Sisi think that the word of someone who is slowly killing the country's elected president in prison, who is committing massacres against his own people, who is currently putting nearly a hundred thousand political prisoners through torture every day can be trusted, then in fact they reveal that they themselves cannot be trusted under any circumstances.

Because by saying so they are only displaying, in all its nakedness, shamefully, their own conscientious, moral and human wretchedness.