A French ship participating in a Nato mission in the Mediterranean has recently been the subject of a manoeuvre "extremely aggressive" on the part of frigates Turkish, according to the French ministry of the Armies, that account denounce this behavior "very serious" at a meeting of the Alliance on Wednesday.
While the French frigate was seeking to identify a cargo ship suspected of carrying arms to Libya, " the frigates, the Turkish intervene and illuminate the Courbet three times with their radar fire control ", which is " an act extremely aggressive ", has described the ministry of the Armies just before a video conference of Defence ministers of the atlantic Alliance.
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" This case is in our eyes very serious. (...) We cannot accept that an ally behaves like this, do this against a ship of the Nato under Nato command in leading a Nato mission, "said Paris, and warned that the minister for the Armed forces Florence Parly would" put the dots on the i's "at this meeting on" the attitude of turkey in the libyan conflict ". "These flocks of boats between Turkey and Misratah, sometimes accompanied by frigates, Turkish, do not contribute to the de-escalation ", stressed the ministry, denouncing the fact that the buildings turks 'use of the indicative Nato" to identify themselves on these missions of escort.
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Paris, increase the tone
The tone does growing up between Paris and Ankara in recent days. On Monday, the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian condemned the military support growing "of Turkey to the GNA in" direct violation of un embargo ". The day before, the French presidency had already denounced the intervention "unacceptable" to Ankara. Turkey has rejected these criticisms on its armed support to the government of Tripoli in Libya, accusing them in turn of Paris to make "obstacle to peace" by supporting the opposing camp.
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In Libya, Ankara was supporting militarily the union Government of libya (GNA) Fayez al-Sarraj, recognized by the united Nations, in the face of the dissident forces of field marshal Khalifa Haftar, the strong man of the Is supported mainly by Russia, Egypt and the united arab Emirates. France, although it would defend publicly, is also accused of supporting Haftar, who has recently suffered heavy defeats on the ground. Libya is engulfed in chaos since the fall of the Gaddafi regime in 2011. Since April of 2019, the conflict has left hundreds dead, including many civilians, and forced more than 200,000 people to flee their homes.
