Erdoğan: Turkey to send 150,000 does of coronavirus vaccine to Libya

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Turkey will send 150,000 doses of coronavirus vaccine to Libya, President and Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced yesterday (April 12).

"In this period when the coronavirus trouble is continuing, we will deliver 150,000 doses of vaccine to them tomorrow," he said at a joint press conference with the prime minister of Libya's Government of National Unity, Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.

Turkey, a country of 83 million people, has so far procured 25 million doses of China's CoronaVac and four million doses of Pfizer's Biontech, according to a statement by Minister of Health Fahrettin Koca yesterday.

Erdoğan received Dbeibeh for a face-to-face meeting before both attended a session of the Turkey-Libya High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.

At a press conference later, Erdoğan said that Turkey's support for Libya helped prevent the fall of the capital Tripoli as well as "more massacres by putschists and helped provide a cease-fire."

Turkey intervened in the war between the Government of National Accord (GNA) and Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA) in a move that is believed to have saved the GNA from a decisive defeat.

Protecting Libya's sovereignty, territorial integrity, political unity, and the welfare of the Libyan people are among Turkey's top goals, Erdoğan said.

"Those who took sides with putschists and the coup in Libya instead of its legitimacy, rights, and justice were allies in the massacres," he said, referring to recent conflict in the country.

Erdoğan said Turkey will continue giving all support to Libya's Government of National Unity, just as it gave to the previous "legitimate government." (EKN/VK)