On November 27, 2019, Turkey and Libya’s hand-picked Tripoli-based Government of National Accord signed a deal delineating maritime borders between Turkey and Libya, two countries that at their closest point are 352 miles apart. To draw that line, however, requires infringing on the waters of Rhodes, Karpathos, and bisecting the eastern end of Crete. It was the equivalent of a hypothetical maritime border deal between Egypt and Italy, cutting across Libyan and Maltese waters.
The deal reflected both Turkey’s new imperialism and Libya’s lack of true sovereignty. As far as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is concerned, Fayez al-Sarraj’s Tripoli-based government existed only to rubber-stamp Turkey’s resource grab.
The Benghazi-based government has been far more successful than Tripoli’s in development, economy, and security.
When Tripoli-based Foreign Minister Mohamed Taher Siala signed the agreement, much of the world condemned it. It reflected the amateurishness of the Tripoli-based government. The precedent Turkey set with its new Mediterranean map was as damaging to maritime law as Iran’s claims over the Strait of Hormuz and China’s Nine-Dash Line.
Libyan authority bifurcated after the 2011 fall of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi. Former Qadhafi-era Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the head of the Libyan Arab Armed Forces, has dominated eastern Libya. After Islamist militias—many backed by Turkey, Qatar, and other radical states—murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, Haftar’s forces launched Operation Dignity and pushed the militias out of Benghazi. Today, the Libyan Arab Armed Forces control 80 percent of the country; the internationally recognized government in Tripoli, led by the unelected Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh, loosely controls the rest of the country and provides shelter for the remaining militias.
Initially, the House of Representatives, the legislative body that oversees the Libyan Arab Armed Forces-controlled regions, rejected the Libya-Turkey deal. That changed on October 20, 2026, when, after sustained Turkish lobbying, the House of Representatives suddenly ratified the agreement.
The ratification does not make the maritime deal any more legal and it is likely a mistake for the field marshal and his son Saddam: The Benghazi-based government has been far more successful than Tripoli’s in development, economy, and security. The juxtaposition between Tripoli’s flouting of international law and Benghazi’s affirmation of it was a major credit to its case. Slowly, European countries were recognizing this: Italy and Greece both opened consulates in Benghazi, and other countries would have followed but for the interference of Dbeibah. Now, with the European Union uniting to condemn the House of Representatives’ move, Benghazi would be lucky if European foreign ministries did not recall their diplomats. Egypt, a major partner to Haftar’s administration, also condemned the move.
Still, Washington and West should consider their own mistakes. Turkey lobbied when other countries refused to engage Benghazi. By any objective measure, the Benghazi-based government should rule Libya. It has fulfilled the mission of government and tremendous development while embezzlement and stagnation marks Tripoli. Dbeibeh hosts a grand mufti whose positions mirror those of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Importantly, the Haftars are nationalists. They do not promote separatism. Libya’s original constitution called Tripoli and Benghazi co-capitals, a system like that in South Africa.
The initial embrace of Tripoli was arbitrary. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aide—future National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan—privileged the Islamists in Libya’s post-Qadhafi order, even after Libyan rejected them in elections. Their logic—and that of the Europeans and United Nations—was that marginalizing the Islamists would lead to greater violence; appeasement became official policy.
Today, many diplomats have forgotten the origins of the policy. The State Department especially operates blind, even refusing to staff a proper embassy in Tripoli, instead basing it in neighboring Tunisia. In Benghazi, bitterness remains because the State Department walked away in the wake of the consulate attack without paying the local family who had leased the property back rent, even though the terror attack had nothing to do with them.
By ignoring Benghazi, the State Department and many in Europe opened the door to Turkey to seize advantage. Turkey might be a malign actor, but its leader is neither passive nor lazy. Persistent lobbying chips away at resistance.
With the October 20 vote, the House of Representatives reversed its earlier rejection. If it can reverse itself once, it can do so again.
While the United States and Europe might be annoyed at the Haftars, the reality is they have done nothing the Tripoli authorities, whom the Americans and Europeans embrace, have not. The State Department and European foreign ministries should explain why for so long they have neglected those forces who had long conformed their policies to European interpretations and interests.
While bidding wars are unseemly, there is room to maneuver. With the October 20 vote, the House of Representatives reversed its earlier rejection. If it can reverse itself once, it can do so again. The international community can also take the position that the decisions of the House of Representatives, whose members’ terms are long expired, are meaningless. To be consistent, then, the State Department and European foreign ministries also should cease the fiction of the Dbeibeh regime.
Rather than using the House of Representatives decision to isolate the east, in favor of a government even more in the pocket of the Turks, the joint U.S., European, and United Nations position should be to set elections now and link aid and cooperation to the new legislature reconsidering and rejecting Turkey’s maritime deal.
