CHP GENEL BAŞKAN YARDIMCISI ÜNAL ÇEVİKÖZ AKPM’NİN LİBYA VE ORTADOĞU GÜNDEMİ HAKKINDA KONUŞTU

Mr. President,
Distinguished members of the Assembly,

We are discussing here today the recent developments in Libya and in the Middle East and we are trying to identify what could be the consequences of those developments for Europe.

The immediate consequences for Europe are manyfold; but most acute among those consequences happen to be the increasing pressure emanating from massive population displacements and growing migration, as well as the increasing danger of terrorist elements reaching out to our own societies.

Turkey is very much exposed to the immediate negative consequences of the Syrian quagmire. Presence of close to 5 million Syrian refugees in Turkey is the most severe result of the Syrian civil war. The unfolding situation in Idlib, I am afraid, is going to aggravate the situation even more.

Let me also mention the principled approach that my party has pursued concerning the developments in Libya.

We have voted against the bill to send troops to Libya when the issue was brought to the Turkish parliament. In fact, all the opposition parties in the Turkish parliament voted against the bill.

We argued that the bill itself was contradicting to the UN Security Council resolutions 1970, which imposes an arms embargo, as well as resolution 2259 which confirms that the Libyan Political Agreement signed in Skhirat on 17 December 2015 is still the only framework in which an end can be brought to the Libyan crisis.

Our position was confirmed in Berlin on the 19th of January at the international conference on Libya, where the institutions deriving from the Libyan Political Agreement continued to receive international recognition.

I have to reiterate that legitimacy in Libya would be incomplete if it fails to include all the institutions, both in Tripoli and in Tobruk, and this is our understanding.

We believe that solution in Libya should be political, not military. And in order to achieve a non-military solution you have to avoid from escalating the conflicts militarily.

We are also concerned about the reports which suggest that there is a serious flow of terrorist fighters from jihadist organisations which are currently based in the Idlib province of Syria to Tripoli in Libya. This is dangerous and all the countries should respect to international law, avoid from getting involved in proxy wars through their clients and support the resolutions of United Nations.

Finally, as we are talking about Libya and the wider Middle East, we should be very careful about the possible consequences of the plan presented yesterday on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There is widespread agreement that the plan fails to present a legitimate framework for lasting peace in the middle east. In fact, reactions to the plan immediately after it has been released justifies this understanding.

Thank you.