Turkey's willingness to dispatch troops to Libya is "unacceptable" and such a move would constitute unwanted meddling in the affairs of a friendly country, the speaker of the north African country's parliament said Saturday.
Aguila Saleh said in a joint statement with his Cypriot counterpart that Turkey's actions are ratcheting up tensions and destabilising the wider region.
Saleh and Cypriot parliamentary speaker Demetris Syllouris also reiterated their condemnation of a maritime border agreement that Turkey signed with Libya's Tripoli-based government -- but which hasn't been ratified, as necessary, by the Libyan parliament as a "flagrant violation of international law that's devoid of any legal basis."
According to Saleh, Erdogan's aim "is to provoke countries in the eastern Mediterranean and to interfere in their exclusive economic zones without taking account these countries' sovereign rights at sea and in the air."
Any such intervention, Conte ventured, "would give way to an incredible military escalation, that would have so many civilian victims and be without a victory for anyone."
Conte called for stepped-up diplomatic pressure to push for a political solution, and said Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio might soon return to Libya to push Italy's determination to work for a "cessation of hostilities."
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