"Turkey is the key to peace"

The Berlin Conference, convened yesterday on Germany's initiative to secure a ceasefire in Libya and contribute to a political solution, took place with full participation, as expected. It is a fact that the holding of this meeting was possible thanks to Turkey. Yet it must be admitted that, even with Turkey's effort, the holding of such a meeting was still very difficult.

For there is a ground that makes dialogue between the parties gathered at the meeting almost impossible. Looked at from one angle, the dialogue was taking place like a dialogue between a wolf that wants to eat its prey no matter what and a lamb. Before Turkey entered the scene, Haftar, backed by the UAE, France and Egypt, was trying to seize and devour the whole of Libya without any need for dialogue whatsoever.

He had no condition or text to offer for bargaining to the Tripoli administration, which the international community recognizes as legitimate. With his heavily armed force supported by air strikes, he was occupying, step by step, the areas under the control of the Tripoli administration. What he wanted was control and occupation not of 95 percent of Libya but of all of it. And because they thought the Tripoli side had no power to defend itself, Haftar and the forces behind him were trying, with the most immoral attitude, to crush and destroy the weak.

That is why calls for a ceasefire in effect meant calls on Haftar to stop his attacks, because the Tripoli side, standing where it stood, was in the position of defending itself against these merciless attacks.

How can a dialogue between wolf and lamb be possible? It can be possible only if the other side too can be made to feel that it has a power to defend itself. Turkey in fact did this. Turkey did what the UN, by its own principles and rules, should have done and did not. From the moment it said that it stood behind the Tripoli administration and from here on would count attacks on Tripoli as made on itself, Haftar, who had been eagerly trying to eat the lamb, saw force, and only in this way could the table in Berlin be brought about.

When setting out yesterday for the Berlin Conference, President Erdoğan used the expression "Turkey is the key to peace." This is in fact the reason and manner of Turkey's entry onto the scene not only in the Libya question but in all the disputes in our region. This is how Turkey stepped in against Qatar's powerful neighbors who wanted to devour it, and prevented the powerful from crushing and destroying the weak.

In Iraq and Syria too, Turkey's role is nothing other than being the key to peace. If there is a war among brothers, it is essential to reconcile them as a third brother. But if this dispute continues because one of them attacks others with greedy and cruel heavy aggression, then to stand against the other in order to defend the rights of the oppressed side is also the command of the Divine maxim.

The establishment of peace is possible only by preventing the aggressor, using force if necessary. Turkey did this in Qatar and in Syria, and is now doing the same in Libya. What it demands is nothing other than peace and the redress of injustice.

Yet there is no reason or argument that could justify Haftar and his supporters continuing their aggression in Libya right now. Really, what is the logic of the UAE's having Haftar attack the legitimate government in Libya by supporting him? Does anyone know, has anyone heard? What is the concern in this world of MBZ, who has abandoned his own business and chases a thousand and one kinds of strife in every corner of the Islamic world? What business has he at a conference seeking stability in Libya?

They wallow in the mud of accusing the Tripoli administration of being "terrorist," which is no different from a wolf with its mind set on eating the lamb saying to the lamb downstream, "you are muddying my water." On the contrary, it is Haftar himself who right now is hand in glove with terrorist groups and who hires foreign fighters from many African countries with money and has them fight against his own people on Libyan soil.

So, in fact, that the leaders who gathered in Berlin yesterday for Libya were able to talk to one another on a minimal basis of logic was possible again thanks to Turkey's initiatives, which made the existence of both sides possible.

In the end, although Turkey has passed a motion to send troops to Libya, it is also demonstrating its sincerity by showing that it will not use this military force without exhausting all possibilities of peace. Looking for sincerity on the side that supports Haftar is of course futile. The peace they want is a peace secured after completely destroying their interlocutors. Control that can be secured through occupation and despotism is not peace. Unfortunately, the peace strategies of both Egypt and the UAE, which support Hatfer with the most despotic coup administration, amount to no more than this.

They have made it their way to export their own coup administrations to every part of the Islamic world. This way, in turn, turns their own countries into unlivable open-air prisons. These conditions create an environment that dynamites peace not only in their own countries but in the whole Islamic world and even in the whole world.

In fact, how is it possible for those who are not at peace with their own peoples to carry peace to any conflict zone in the world?