Turkey threatens to ‘teach lesson’ to Libya’s Haftar

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the ‘putschist Haftar ran away’ from Moscow after Monday’s peace talks. (AFP)
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Updated 14 January 2020
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Turkey threatens to ‘teach lesson’ to Libya’s Haftar

  • Erdogan said the ‘putschist Haftar ran away’ from Moscow after Monday’s peace talks

ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday he would “teach a lesson” to Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar if he resumed fighting after abandoning cease-fire talks in Moscow.

Haftar left Moscow on Tuesday without signing a peace deal aimed at ending nine months of fighting with the UN-backed government in Tripoli.

“We will not hesitate to teach a deserved lesson to the putschist Haftar if he continues his attacks on the country’s legitimate administration and our brothers in Libya,” Erdogan told a meeting of his party in Ankara in a televised speech.

Erdogan said the issue would now be discussed at talks in Berlin on Sunday attended by European, North African and Middle Eastern countries, as well as the UN, EU, Africa Union and Arab League.

“The putschist Haftar did not sign the cease-fire. He first said yes, but later unfortunately he left Moscow, he fled Moscow,” Erdogan said.

“Despite this, we find the talks in Moscow were positive as they showed the true face of the putschist Haftar to the international community.”


Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

Updated 24 January 2026
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Take back and prosecute your jailed Daesh militants, Iraq tells Europe

RAQQA: Baghdad on Friday urged European states to repatriate and prosecute their citizens who fought for Daesh, and who are now being moved to Iraq from detention camps in Syria.

Europeans were among 150 Daesh prisoners transferred so far by the US military from Kurdish custody in Syria. They were among an estimated 7,000 militants due to be moved across the border to Iraq as the Kurdish-led force that has held them for years relinquishes swaths of territory to the advancing Syrian army.
In a telephone call on Friday with French President Emmanuel Macron, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said European countries should take back and prosecute their nationals.
An Iraqi security official said the 150 so far transferred to Iraq were “all leaders of the Daesh group, and some of the most notorious criminals.” They included “Europeans, Asians, Arabs and Iraqis,” he said.
Another Iraqi security source said the group comprised “85 Iraqis and 65 others of various nationalities, including Europeans, Sudanese, Somalis, and people from the Caucasus region.”
They all took part in Daesh operations in Iraq, he said, and were now being held at a prison in Baghdad.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that “non-Iraqi terrorists will be in Iraq temporarily.”
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces jailed thousands of militant fighters and detained tens of thousands of their relatives in camps as it pushed out Daesh in 2019 after five years of fighting.