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Libyan cease-fire casts cloud over Erdogan’s ambitions

Having failed to advance its military intervention in Libya, Ankara has grudgingly endorsed a cease-fire in the conflict, but its ambitions appear intact for the process down the road.
TOPSHOT - Members of the Salah Bou-Haliqa brigade, loyal to the country's east strongman Khalifa Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army, celebrate as they arrive in the eastern city of Benghazi after seizing the central al-Jufra area from the Benghazi Defence Brigades coalition, a rival to Haftar's forces on June 5, 2017.  / AFP PHOTO / Abdullah DOMA        (Photo credit should read ABDULLAH DOMA/AFP via Getty Images)
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Libya is debating a fresh cease-fire with both overlapping and conflicting terms by the warring parties, very much in the style of the blind men describing an elephant. In any case, the current equilibrium — the result of Turkey’s military intervention in favor of the Tripoli forces and the ensuing “red line” that Egypt and Russia set at Sirte and al-Jufra — is dictating a return to the negotiating table.

On Aug. 21, both Fayez al-Sarraj, the head of the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, and Aguila Saleh, the leader of the rival House of Representatives in eastern Libya, called for a cease-fire following a flurry of diplomacy marked by German and American efforts. 

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