Turkey: The Geo Political Knot
Photo Credit Anadolu Agency
The dramatic changes to Libya over the past decade since it underwent revolutionary change in 2011 have not only changed it’s own domestic politics and society, but has also been a critical chapter in the transformation of Turkish foreign policy towards the country. There are a multitude of differences between respective Turkish foreign policies of the past under the Gaddafi era and the foreign policy of the last decade in the post-revolution climate, resulting in a major shift in Libya’s strategic importance to Turkey.
It is challenging to reduce or define over four decades of foreign relations to a distinct policy or a certain mode of bilateral relations between Turkey and Libya during the Gaddafi regime for two reasons. Firstly, Gaddafi himself was an unpredictable figure with whom it was difficult to maintain a consistent and stable diplomatic or even personal relationship with; secondly, Gaddafi ruled for 42 years, which is a long life span that was bound to experience fluctuations in any engagement. This was also the case for Turkish-Libyan relations, which ranged from Gaddafi’s solidarity with Turkey against the U.S.-imposed embargo after Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus in 1974, to intermittent harbouring of members of designated terrorist organisations such as the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia) in Libya. Asides from the political turbulence, the most discernible and consistent hallmark of Turkish-Libyan relations during the Gaddafi era were primarily economic in nature with bilateral trade and investments being most notable. Libya served as one of the most profitable foreign construction destinations for Turkey following Gaddafi’s rapprochement with the West in 2003. By 2010, around 200 Turkish construction firms operating in Libya had secured contracts for over 300 construction projects worth 20 billion U.S. Dollars. While the economic and commercial aspect of bilateral relations was robust, the political aspect of bilateral relations was only peripheral to the former.
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