Libya

A Turkish ship transporting medicine to Libya's port of Misrata was detained early on Dec. 8 by forces loyal to Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar. 

Haftar's forces detained the vessel and its 17 crew members, including nine Turkish citizens, claiming they did not comply with instructions.

The Mytilineos Group announced on Monday that after three years of delays due to the internal situation in Libya, it is relaunching construction work for a new power plant in Tobruk, as the necessary funding lines that had been languishing have now been activated. 

Turkish prosecutors launched an investigation Friday into the search of a Turkish commercial freighter by the crew of a German frigate participating in a European Union mission to enforce an arms embargo on Libya.

Ankara will take necessary steps in every field against the EU's Operation Irini over the illegal search of a Turkish-flagged vessel bound for Libya, Turkey's National Security Council said on Nov. 25. 

The envoys of the European Union, Italy and Germany in the Turkish capital Ankara were summoned to the country's Foreign Ministry on Nov. 23 in the wake of a controversial search of a Turkish-flagged ship by an EU naval mission a day earlier.

A German frigate serving under a Greek-commanded EU naval mission conducted an hours-long and illegal search early on Monday on a Turkish cargo ship carrying humanitarian supplies in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea to war-torn Libya.

Ankara has once again prevented the European Union's naval mission enforcing the Libya arms embargo from checking a suspect freighter off the war-torn country's coast, Germany's Der Spiegel reports.

A passing out ceremony was held on Nov. 21 for Libyan soldiers who completed an eight-week training by the Turkish Armed Forces.

The training was held as part of a deal signed between the two countries last year.

Libyan Defense Minister Salahaddin Namroush said the completion of this training was evidence that the Libyan-Turkish military cooperation was bearing fruit.

From the signing of the Turkey-Libya agreement on maritime boundaries, it was clear that there had to be a response from the Greek side. The fact is that the above memorandum is completely illegal. International maritime law suggests that for there to be an agreement on maritime boundaries between nations they must have either adjacent or opposite coastlines.

Turkey's presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalın spoke via telephone on Aug. 14 with U.S. National Security Advisor Robert C. O'Brien about bilateral relations, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean and Palestine, according to an official statement.