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Source: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/turkey-threatens-west-in-new-libya-crisis-gqbht87fs
Turkey Threatens West in New Libya Crisis
(The Times-UK) Roger Boyes - The discovery of large undersea hydrocarbon reserves in the eastern Mediterranean is giving shape to a new regional constellation: Egypt and Cyprus, Israel and Greece. But the four main gas beneficiaries have reckoned without the great disrupter, Turkey, which is reaching across the waters to Libya. It has been reviving the old Ottoman idea of the Blue Motherland, which projects Turkey's maritime power from the Black Sea to the Aegean. Erdogan and Qatar are pretty much the lone protectors of the Tripoli government. The Turkish leader is likely to deploy several hundred ethnic Turkmen Syrian insurgents to neutralize the Russian mercenaries supporting rebel Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose army is heading towards Tripoli. If Turkey's influence in Libya grows, then the next big springboard for mass migration to Europe will be under Erdogan's control. That would be a way of recovering Turkey's geopolitical advantage, the threat to turn on the taps of a new wave of migrants.