 Hello and welcome to NewsClick's Mapping Fault Lines, where we discuss some of the major geopolitical issues around the world and their impact on the region. Today, we're going to talk about the situation in Libya. Libya is approaching a crisis as the soldiers loyal to warlord Khalifa Haftar, who was a former CIA agent, are close to the capital city of Tripoli and the city of Misruta. Haftar has given a deadline to the militia which occupies that region to surrender by Sunday. Meanwhile, the force which controls Tripoli and Misruta, that is the GNA, or the Government of National Accord, led by Faisal Saraj, has signed an agreement with Turkey and hopes that Turkish soldiers will actually intervene in the country to save this government. To talk more about this situation, we have with us Prabhupur Kaisar. Prabhupur Libya has emerged as one of the most conflict-ridden zones in the last one year. So we saw that in April, Haftar actually began his so-called revolt in which he tried to capture Tripoli and Misruta and the whole country and united it under his rule. And he's captured actually most of the country. So we see a very small narrow band where the government forces, so the Government of National Accord, which is technically supported by most of the international powers, continues to exercise its control, whereas he has taken over most of the country. Meanwhile, there will also be new developments in which Saraj has received support from Turkey. So we'll go into some of those implications later, but right now what do you see as immediately happening and what are the major roles of these key players? Let's put it this way, Haftar started in the CIA asset. He was airlifted virtually to Libya after the NATO forces, of course at the time the United States claimed it was only distantly involved, France and Britain was much more actively involved, but nevertheless it was supported as we know by NATO umbrella, essentially arming various sections against Gaddafi and providing a complete air cover to them and therefore really destroying Gaddafi's so controlled anti-soldiers. Finally, as you know the famous picture that we have of Hillary Clinton, crowing in glee over Gaddafi's bloody end and a very, very brutal end, which was done by forces which are seeking to overthrow him and were backed by these kind of NATO umbrella. Now as we know also that there was a direct link between the upsurge that takes took place in Libya and the various Islamist forces who otherwise would have been part of what would be called the global war on terror and the US was supposed to be fighting them. As we know, they were the ones also in Benghazi, they were the ones who originally had been demanded that they be handed over to US and UK and they were then again shipped back to Benghazi for the revolt against the Libyan strong man or Libyan ruler Gaddafi. Now all that is past history, but what has happened is over the last few years we didn't really have a stable government in Libya and what we have is a destroyed nation. That may serve the US well because Libya was playing a very important role both in the Arab world but also in Africa and the Organization of African Union was really being helped a lot by Gaddafi willing to bankroll a lot of its activities. So removing Gaddafi was the aim and in the process destruction of Gaddafi's state Libya, the Libyan state was of small consequence to shall we say the big powers like the US and the other NATO forces. Of course Russia was not a player at the time and Russia and China had tacitly agreed to the NATO's intervention in this form by abstaining in the United Nations Security Council and that has caused really the breakup of Libya and this is a mistake they haven't done again when it came to Syria. It started as we said by only a supposedly an air umbrella, but looking at it now it seems that Haftar was being backed by most of the countries tacitly not openly tacitly while officially as you said Sirajia's government still is the recognized only recognized entity and operates under some kind of human mandate. But physically Haftar controls most of the areas and as we also know that the concentration of population around Tripoli that part of the belt which you so see is still with the GNA that's still a very significant part of Libya's population because the area and the amount of land and the population don't really match they're not evenly distributed so that those are really the populated areas and relatively the only other populated areas really Benghazi. Now if we come to the military issue this battle has been going on for the last almost now a year when Haftar started his march to Benghazi and then to Tripoli and came to his shall we say to its borders and was the at one point he had said he will take it over by such and such day that didn't transpire. So other things going to change is the important question particularly as we know the other forces which are there in Libya do not want Haftar to really take over complete control so they have rallied with the GNA not a subservient to them but independently so that Haftar doesn't capture the whole of Libya. So I think that military balance is still very much there between the two sides and the moment but what can disturb the military balance particularly Haftar's march to take complete charge of Tripoli is the fact that now the Tripoli regime is being backed by Turkey and therefore this changes the complexion because you know the issue is really that Turkey is the most militarily powerful country in that region. So therefore if they intervene is Egypt really going to fight for Haftar will Russia try to have an arrangement behind the scenes because they have a good equation with Turkey at the moment Turkey is still a part of NATO so will the NATO back Turkey obviously he is part of NATO but a dissident part of NATO as of now. So what is the relation going to be these are open questions but at the moment I don't see either NATO or European Union or the United Nations intervening on either side. So I will say between Haftar and the Shiraj there is still a military balance being struck with Turkey coming in. So what we are likely to say is possibly a status quo continuing but all of these things are very open because it's really ultimately the soldiers of the ground that will decide what happens and guns are there in both heads. So the number of militias in Libya are very high and if some sections break and join another side the military balance can tilt. So I still think that Turkey's entry into this is to shore up the GNA and Shiraj's forces but it will not lead to a retreat by Haftar but can still lead to a continuation of the stalemate which Haftar was trying to break with support by all other forces because he seems to have the major part of the arms or arm forces seems to be with Haftar at the moment. So militarily he certainly is on the offensive or at least holds the upper hand. This is I think where it stands the issue is still very much open. The question is why did Turkey join at this stage Shiraj? Right so while the battle on land goes on a very different kind of contest is taking place on the seas now along with the agreement Turkey signed to say provide or say maybe provide aid to Shiraj's government there was also a renegotiation of maritime boundaries and this takes place in the Mediterranean Sea where already there has been a huge amount of contestation and there are multiple players involved there is Greece, there's Cyprus, there is Italy which now wants to intervene, Egypt, Israel. So all these players together have been trying to work in various combinations some months ago many of these countries formed a group to consider a pipeline to Greece and to Europe and in between this now this new negotiation this new deal Shiraj is struck with Turkey actually provides Turkey a particular window to claim control over certain parts of the Mediterranean. So could you give a bit of an idea about the kind of say sides that are there in this picture and the kind of agenda they have? You see if we look at the map you can see the kind of complexity there is over what would be called the economically exclusive zone right now economically exclusive zones go for a certain 200 kilometers from the coastline but the point about the economic exclusive zone is when two countries are abutting each other or on the opposite coast then where does one zone stop and other ones begin becomes an issue of contestation particularly if there are a lot of islands so do they therefore mean that each island can also act as if that is the extent of the economic zone of the parent country to which this island belongs and this is particularly true for between Greece and Turkey so if you see Greece it has a number of islands off the coast of Turkey now we'll not get into how this happened this is over a period when Turkey was strong it had a different equation the Turkey became weaker Greece was stronger it had a different equation leaving all of that out the essential issue is part of the Mediterranean and the AGMC the control of Greece or the claims of Greece have been that because of the islands their economic exclusive zone really stretches up to the coast of Turkey virtually and Turkey therefore is to be frozen out of all those areas including the agency is Greece's argument on the other side and this is the other side of the Mediterranean you find that there is Cyprus there is Israel Israel claims also Palestine as you know the right now officially they have seemed to have argued that Palestine is a part of Israel they don't recognize the two states and the solution anymore and backed by the United States and then you have also Lebanon and of course Cyprus because there is a Turkish Cyprus and there's a Greek Cyprus though Cyprus was an independent state before the partition took place without getting into the history so where does these economic exclusive zones also work so recently there has been an attempt particularly by Israel to claim a lot of this oil and gas reserves in the seas and from Gaza to Lebanon they have tried to capture most of these resources now the question is having done that where do they ship the gas and oil the obvious destination is Europe so here they also combined with Greece and Cyprus Cyprus meaning Greek Cyprus to claim that they will ship all this oil and gas out of Mediterranean through this pipeline which will run to European Union and it will go through essentially Crete and Greece for you can see that on the map and this red line is the pipeline and therefore this would particularly this would auto almost freeze Turkey out of any of these activities in the Mediterranean and of course in the Aegean now Turkey has been fighting this it has been talking about a near Turkish Cypriot areas and they have the right and with Cyprus Turkish Cyprus they have signed some agreements so they can go there and do some digging drilling and so on and which has been opposed by other players you can also see a lot of the so-called economic zones that people have sketched out over there are disputed that one does not agree with the other but we leave that out the big picture is there is now Greece there is Israel claiming to represent the palace to claiming to represent Palestine and you have US and UK also this mix who are now talking of trying to ship all this oil and gas to the pipeline now whether the pipeline is viable economically not a separate issue but Turkey has with this agreement with Libya you can see they have declared a passage which they say is of they will control by virtue of having the economic zones on both sides one Libya and the other one being Turkey and this directly interrupts the so-called pipeline project so what they are saying is okay you held till now the cards because you have these countries the backing of these countries you have the support of NATO in some sense as you know NATO has been supposedly equidistant Greece and Turkey though Turkey is the much more military the bigger military power nevertheless Greece has the tacit support of other European countries including the United States now they have put their cards in the table we block the pipeline if you don't give us our role our share of what what is the gas and oil over this so it's almost seems like a colonial battle right who control great game sort of right the part of the great oil and gas game right with now under the sea and it is really also impacting the countries in the region and each one has to now seek an alignment how to play this game but i think this is a show stopper if you will because Turkey doesn't have to invest in developing resources what it is doing at the moment is to stake claims and see that this project does not take off and it is blocked if it is blocked then it hopes that it will be allowed to get a seat at the table and then participate in the gas and oil development of the region of the undersea resources and therefore it will not completely go the israel and greece way which is what the attempt really is backed of course but the perennial troublemakers united states and united kingdom thank you so much for being that's all we have time for today keep watching us click