Khalifa Haftar

Some 300 Turks living in and around the Libyan capital have said that they feel better after a truce between the battling sides in the country.

Turkish citizens living under the siege by Gen. Khalifa Haftar's military forces for nine months are mostly owners of restaurants, furniture shops and auto mechanic shops, according to the Turkish consulate in Tripoli.

Rocket fire forced the suspension of all flights into and out of Tripoli's sole functioning airport on Jan. 22, only nine days after it reopened following a truce, Libya's embattled U.N.-recognised government said.

Turkey's foreign minister on Jan. 22 said the Syrian regime's attacks in the last rebel-held enclave of Idlib are "unacceptable" and called on Russia to abide by a recent ceasefire brokered by Ankara and Moscow as a guarantor state.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Davutoglu said Tuesday that there is no reason for Greece to participate in the Berlin Process, the initiative to try to resolve the crisis in Libya.

"Why did Mitsotakis invite Haftar to Greece? Did he just want to provoke us?" an annoyed Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on his return from the Berlin conference on the Libya crisis regarding the meeting between Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Libyan military commander Khalifa Haftar in Athens on Friday.

Escalating the incendiary rhetoric directed at Athens, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed again, after his return on Sunday from the Berlin conference on Libya, that the southern island of Crete does not have a continental shelf while also slamming Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis for receiving Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar in Athens last week.

Having achieved the government's aim to seek a broad consensus over its pick for Greece's next president, Katerina Sakellaropoulou, Prime Minster Kyriakos Mitsotakis' focus has shifted to Greek-Turkish relations, with an eye on Libya and migration.

The way for the political process for settlement in Libya would be paved if the parties stick to the truce reached in the North African country, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on Jan. 19.

On his return to Ankara from Sunday's Berlin conference on the Libya crisis, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan commented once again on the maritime zones that he purports have been delineated by a memorandum signed between Ankara and Tripoli in November. 

The West countries, Russia and the Arab countries have reached an agreement on Libya. Following the meeting in Berlin, it was announced that the world leaders agreed to uphold a UN arms embargo and end military backing for the North African country's warring factions.