Libya’s internationally recognised Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni yesterday said his government would stop dealing with Turkey because it was sending weapons to a rival group in Tripoli so that “the Libyan people kill each other”.

Two administrations, one in the capital and Thinni’s in the east, have been battling for power since the armed group Libya Dawn seized Tripoli in July and reinstated lawmakers from a previous assembly, four years after Muammar Gaddafi was ousted.

“Turkey is a state that is not dealing honestly with us. It’s exporting weapons to us so the Libyan people kill each other,” Thinni told Egyptian TV channel CBC late on Thursday.

A spokesman for Turkey’s Foreign Ministry strongly denied Thinni’s allegations. Turkey is one of a handful of countries which publicly received officials from the Tripoli government and parliament. Thinni’s government earlier this week accused Ankara of backing the Tripoli government.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.