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Russia Looks to Washington for Help in Libya

Jamie Dettmer

   Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, said Wednesday that he
   would welcome any efforts by Washington to use its influence on Turkey
   to help fashion a truce in Libya, where Ankara and Moscow are backing
   opposing sides and appear to be at increasing odds.

   Turkey dismissed last week an Egyptian-backed cease-fire offered on
   behalf of General Khalifa Haftar. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut
   Cavusoglu scoffed that the general only wanted a truce because he was
   now losing on the battlefield. He said that as far as Ankara was
   concerned, the cease-fire initiative, broached by Egypt's President
   Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, another Haftar backer, was "stillborn."

   The Moscow-backed renegade warlord's eastern-based forces last month
   had to lift their 14-month siege of the Libyan capital, Tripoli,
   following a massive, game-changing increase in military support by
   Turkey for the internationally recognized Government of National
   Accord, or GNA.

   Lavrov and Russia's defense minister canceled on short notice a planned
   visit Sunday to Turkey to try to thrash out a cease-fire deal. Some
   Western diplomats interpret Lavrov's appeal to Washington, an
   about-turn by Russia's foreign minister, who in the past has criticized
   any Western involvement in Libya, as a sign of mounting exasperation in
   Moscow over the reversal of Haftar's fortunes on the battlefield.

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