PM Dabaiba reaffirms GNA-era maritime agreement with Turkey

On 12 April, the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity (GNU), Abdul Hameed Dabaiba, along with more than a dozen Libyan ministers and officials, made their first official visit to Ankara. They held a series of meetings under the umbrella of the ‘Turkey-Libya High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council’ that culminated with Dabaiba and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan reaffirming their commitment to the controversial 2019 maritime agreement between Turkey and the Government of National Accord (GNA). Five separate agreements were also established. The renewal of the maritime agreement and establishment of extensive new contracts between the GNU and Turkey indicates that Dabaiba intends to maintain, and even strengthen, preferential ties to Ankara on economic and security issues. This clear foreign policy alignment is likely to curtail opportunities to strengthen Libya's relationship with key European states and could provoke direct hostility towards the GNU from Russia, the UAE, and Egypt, who have maintained an overall non-committal stance up until this point.