Tripoli Floats Idea for Oil Demilitarized Zone As Haftar And Russians Begin Counter Attack
Moves are intensifying to bring about a ceasefire in the Libyan civil war between the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord and the House of Representative Government in Tobruk, with officials of the Libyan National Oil Co backed members of the Tripoli administration offering to make the oil fields of the Sirte basin a demilitarized zone and lift the blockade on exports from areas controlled by the House of Representatives. As matters stand, the majority of the country’s potential oil production comes from areas under the control of the House of Representatives and its associated Libyan National Army under Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, but exports are under a UN ban since the House of Representatives government is unrecognized. The recent Turkish-backed GNA assault on the town of Sirte has raised the prospect of battles amid the oil fields and installations of the Sirte basin, but the recent attack on the El-Sharara oil field in the South-west of the country by local tribes and the Russian Wagner group has also shown that the GNA is not invulnerable to attacks on its own oil fields; indeed it has now lost most of its limited production.
With oil facilities East and West now at risk, there has been a flurry of activity concerning the Libyan National Oil Co and an important meeting of the state-company has been scheduled for the next few days. Until now this institution has been hamstrung by divisions and its board and management is split between representatives from the Western region controlled by the GNA and the Eastern region controlled by the House of Representatives. Effective control has resided with Tripoli because of the central bank and the fact the GNA is the internationally-recognized government. But the East has most of the oil and there is alarm on both sides of LNOC that the oil facilities will be devastated if the Turkish backed offensive continues. As a result, senior Tripoli officials want the oil areas to be declared a demilitarized zone, but the House of Representatives is certain to demand the lifting of the embargo on exports as part of the deal.
The meeting of the LNOC comes amid growing unease in Tripoli about the price being paid to Turkey for its support in the conflict with Tobruk and the LNA. Rumours swirl about the country’s cash and gold being taken from Tripoli to Ankara and various other Turkish demands for payments considered egregious by GNA members, plus the unlicensed activities of MIT, the Turkish intelligence service in Libya and the Sahel via Libya. So despite the intensify of the conflict on the ground, there has been a quiet diplomacy between officials East and West to see if there can be some limits put on the conflict. Added to this, the head of the US Africom, General Stephen Townsend, recently flew in to meet GNA Prime Minister, Fayez al-Sarraj, and press for the removal of foreign forces in the country. This is mostly a reference to the jihadis and ISIS-forces shipped into Libya via Turkey with funds from Qatar. There is now a motion coming to the Tripoli parliament to expel them and focus on the development of the Libyan Army.
The flurry of activity to secure agreement between both sides comes amid indications that the Libyan National Army and its Russian-backers are now preparing to counterattack the GNA forces after their attack on Sirte town. Within the next few days, it is anticipated that Haftar will target Abugrein, a key junction halfway between Sirte and Misrata, a town increasingly under Turkish control and location of planned military base for Ankara. This will take the LNA and the Wagner group into the territory of western Libya and, if accomplished, will follow the recent success of the Wagner group of penetrating deep into the Libyan Fezzan to halt the Repsol-operated El-Sharara oil field production, the only substantial oil production that had been available to Tripoli.
