ANKARA — Turkey and the United States are increasingly aligned in efforts to bridge Libya’s Tripoli-Benghazi divide, but their cooperation could be tested by Washington’s position on Ankara’s contested maritime pact with Tripoli.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted Saddam Hifter — deputy commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), which is based in Benghazi and led by his father, Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter — on Monday. The meeting came a week after Rubio held talks with Government of National Unity (GNU) Deputy Defense Minister Abdulsalam al-Zubi, Saddam Hifter's counterpart in the western Tripoli-based government.

Prior to Rubio, Massad Boulos, US senior adviser for Arab and African affairs, discussed unification efforts with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan in Cairo on June 20. Boulos said the parties reaffirmed support for Libya’s unity, sovereignty and long-term stability.

The back-to-back meetings reflect Washington's intensifying push to reunify Libya's rival administrations, currently divided between Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibah's Tripoli-based GNU and eastern authorities aligned with Khalifa Hifter. Under the widely reported power-sharing proposal, Saddam Hifter, or another eastern figure, would head a presidential council, while Dbeibah would remain prime minister or be succeeded by his nephew, Ibrahim Dbeibah.