Hopes for a quiet and peaceful year have ended too quickly in the very early days of 2020. Already unstable and unpromising, the Middle East seems to enter a new and a more dangerous era after the assassination of Iran’s top commander of the Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani by the United States on Jan. 3.
Signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a bill seeking the consent of lawmakers to deploy Turkish troops in Libya has been submitted to the Turkish Parliament.
According to the senior officials from the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), a bill to seek parliamentary consent for the deployment of troops to Libya will be submitted to parliament this week, much before the announced timing.
The news on a court decision that sentenced seven prominent journalists of the opposition newspaper, daily Sözcü, to imprisonment broke on Dec. 27 when this columnist was at a meeting with the main opposition, Republican People’s Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu.
No doubt, foreign and security policies will continue to dominate Turkey’s agenda in the next year. The Syrian civil war, efforts for the return of the Syrians, an ongoing dispute in the eastern Mediterranean, the probable deployment of the Turkish troops to Libya and cold winds between Ankara and Washington are just a few of the dossiers to be closely followed in 2020.
First, it was Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu; then, it was President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan who said that Turkey may shut down İncirlik military base and the radar site in Kürecik, Malatya in retaliation against a vote by the U.S. Congress that paves the way for sanctioning Turkey over its military operation into Syria and purchase of Russian weaponry.
The two memoranda of understandings Turkey signed with Libya on Nov. 27 have already changed balances on both the eastern Mediterranean and the Libyan civil war theaters.
It’s crystal clear that the results of the general elections in the U.K. will have drastic consequences and reflections beyond the country, and particularly in Europe.
The devastating Libyan civil war does not promise a peaceful resolution any time soon. Having continued in different forms since the ouster of former leader Muammar al-Qaddafi in October 2011, the deadly war in Libya has created two powerful rival fronts along the political, ideological and tribal lines.
