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According to information from SPIEGEL, the Ankara government prevented the Bundeswehr from checking a suspicious Turkish merchant ship at the last minute. The Turkish freighter “Rosaline A” was stopped on Sunday about 200 kilometers north of the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi by the German frigate “Hamburg” because the EU-led mission “Irini” had indications that the weapons were illegal for Libyans to edge The Civil War is being smuggled.
What at first sounds like a routine mission ended in a scandal. Turkey protested just hours after German soldiers tasked by the EU to curb illegal arms smuggling into Libya boarded the ship in the late afternoon. Specifically, Ankara informed the EU mission that the check would not be approved.
Due to Ankara’s refusal, the German soldiers had to immediately stop checking the cargo and landed at dawn on Monday. The “Rosaline A” was able to continue her journey to Libya. According to the plan, the cargo container should now call at Misrata.
The incident shows once again how difficult it is to curb arms smuggling into Libya. Turkey does not hide the direct support of the internationally recognized government of Tripoli and sends arms and mercenaries by ships and airplanes. Operation Irini, however, is completely powerless without Ankara’s cooperation.
The Bundeswehr had already stopped a cargo ship bound for Libya in the summer. The suspicion of arms smuggling was quickly confirmed at the time, as the freighter had a special type of kerosene on board that is only used for fighter jets.
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