Fidan’s Haftar meeting signals Turkey’s pragmatic Libya reset

BENGHAZI, Libya – Turkey sought to broaden its influence across Libya on Wednesday as Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan met eastern military commander Khalifa Haftar, a former adversary of Ankara, a day after holding talks with senior officials in the western capital Tripoli.

The two-day visit gave a clear illustration of Turkey’s evolving Libya policy: preserving its close military and political ties with the Tripoli authorities while building direct relations with the eastern camp that Ankara once fought against.

Fidan met Haftar in Benghazi, along with Haftar’s son Saddam, deputy commander of the Libyan National Army, parliament speaker Aguila Saleh and Belqasem Haftar, head of the Libya Development and Reconstruction Fund.

In Tripoli on Tuesday, Fidan met Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, Presidential Council President Mohammed al-Menfi and senior security and defence officials, and also visited Turkish troops serving with Ankara’s Libya Task Group.

The visit is the clearest sign yet that Ankara’s Libya strategy is no longer centred on the country’s traditional east-west military divide.

Fidan said the trip reflected Turkey’s “One Libya” policy.

“Our visit has been a concrete manifestation of our ‘One Libya’ policy, which makes no distinction between Libya’s west, east and south,” he said.

He added that Ankara would continue to support dialogue between Libya’s rival regions under President Tayyip Erdogan’s foreign policy vision.

The policy represents a marked departure from 2019, when Turkey intervened militarily to support the Tripoli-based government after Haftar launched an offensive against the capital.

Turkish drones, air defence systems, advisers and operational support helped the Tripoli government push Haftar’s forces back, fundamentally changing the course of the conflict.

Six years later, Ankara has little incentive to repeat that confrontation.

Turkey’s interests have expanded beyond its strategic relationship with western Libya and now include major construction, infrastructure and energy opportunities across the country.

Turkish companies have undertaken hundreds of projects in Libya, while bilateral trade reached around $3.5 billion last year. Turkish state energy company TPAO has also secured rights to jointly operate two oil fields in Libya.

The eastern outreach also coincides with a broader regional rapprochement.

Turkey has improved relations with Egypt and the UAE, which were previously among the main backers of Haftar during the Libyan conflict. That has created more room for Ankara to engage with eastern Libya without necessarily undermining its partnership with Tripoli.

Fidan’s meeting with Saddam Haftar may be particularly significant.

While the younger Haftar remains part of the eastern military establishment, his growing public role has fuelled speculation about his potential place in Libya’s future political and security arrangements. Ankara’s decision to engage with him suggests it is interested not only in current power structures but also in figures who could become influential in any future settlement.

Turkey’s diplomatic sources said the visit was also intended to strengthen cooperation in energy and encourage new projects, while ensuring that Turkish companies could continue operating safely in Libya.

The economic dimension is increasingly important as Libya seeks to rebuild infrastructure after years of conflict.

Libya remains divided between the internationally recognised Government of National Unity in Tripoli and an eastern administration backed by the House of Representatives and Haftar’s forces.

The United Nations has spent years trying to broker elections and a political settlement, but efforts to overcome the country’s institutional divisions have repeatedly stalled.

Turkey says it supports those efforts and backs a process led by Libyans themselves.

“Türkiye does not consider Libya’s peace and stability separately from its own stability,” Fidan said.

The Turkish minister also stressed that Ankara would continue supporting the unification of Libya’s military institutions. Forces from western and eastern Libya participated in the EFES 2026 military exercise, which Ankara presented as a step towards greater military coordination.

The timing of Fidan’s visit is nevertheless sensitive. Libya remains vulnerable to renewed violence, particularly in the west, where recent security tensions have affected strategic areas and threatened energy infrastructure.

Turkey’s military presence in Tripoli could still play a deterrent role, but Ankara appears increasingly reluctant to turn that presence into another direct military confrontation.

Instead, Fidan’s simultaneous engagement with Tripoli and Benghazi could give Turkey leverage with both sides at a time when outside powers are showing greater interest in a political settlement.

The visit does not mean Turkey has abandoned its alliance with Tripoli. Its military agreements, economic interests and long-standing political ties with the western authorities remain substantial.

But Ankara appears to have concluded that those interests can no longer be protected by choosing one Libyan camp over another.

That calculation marks a fundamental difference between Turkey’s role in Libya in 2019 and its strategy today.

Then, Ankara intervened to change the outcome of a war. Now, it appears to be seeking a position from which it can help shape the terms of a settlement.