Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Wednesday met Libya's eastern army commander Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi, as Ankara seeks to widen its outreach across divided Libya.
The meeting came on the second day of Fidan’s two-day visit. He was greeted at Benghazi’s international airport by Saddam Haftar, deputy commander of the self-styled Libyan National Army and the army commander’s son.
Images released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry showed Fidan meeting the elder Haftar, whose forces control much of eastern and southern Libya.
The Benghazi stop followed a series of Tuesday meetings in the western city of Tripoli, where Fidan spoke with leaders of Libya’s internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU).
In Tripoli, Fidan met GNU Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah, Presidential Council President Mohammed al-Menfi, and Supreme Council of State chairman Mohamed Takala.
He also met Libyan security officials and visited a Turkish military task-force command centre located in the capital.
Fidan’s visit underscores Türkiye’s effort to maintain ties with authorities on both sides of Libya’s long-running political divide.
Ankara has traditionally backed the GNU, providing crucial military support that helped repel a 2019-2020 offensive against the capital by Haftar’s forces.
Since then, however, Ankara has increasingly sought to open channels with eastern leaders as well.
Notably, Fidan’s visit comes amid a resurgence of instability in several parts of the country.
A recent series of drone attacks struck oil and power facilities near the western city of Zawiya, including Libya’s largest refinery, while a Wednesday strike on a power substation caused widespread outages.
So far, no group had claimed responsibility for the attacks.
In Benghazi, meanwhile, Fawzy al-Mansouri, a senior military intelligence officer in Haftar’s forces, was killed by a car bomb by unidentified perpetrators on Monday.
Libya has remained divided between rival administrations since a NATO-backed uprising in 2011 toppled long-time leader Muammar Gadhafi.
The GNU controls much of western Libya, while an eastern administration led by Haftar, which enjoys broad support from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, holds sway in the country’s east and south.
Fidan will head to Egypt on Thursday for a two-day visit, during which he is expected to meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty.
While in Cairo, he will also co-chair the second meeting of the Turkey-Egypt Joint Planning Group.
According to officials, the Cairo talks will likely cover Libya, Gaza, Syria and wider regional security, along with means of enhancing bilateral cooperation in trade, energy, defence and migration.
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