Tunisian President Kais Saied: Turkey's Intervention In Libya Has Legal Standing; Partition Of Libya Would Endanger Tunisia And Algeria

Tunisian President Kais Saied said in a June 23, 2020 interview on France 24 TV that the legal standing of Turkey’s intervention in Libya is better than that of other countries, and that the imminent danger is the possibility that Libya would be partitioned, as he pointed out has happened to other federal states in the past. He emphasized that Libya should remain unified and that its partition would endanger Tunisia and Algeria. In addition, President Saied said that no country, including the United States, has dared to ask him for permission to build military bases on Tunisian soil. He stressed that there will be no foreign military bases in Tunisia.

President Kais Saied: "The legal standing of Turkey's [intervention in Libya] is better than that of the other countries, but the situation on the ground applies to everybody. It applied to all who have intervened in Libya. The imminent danger - the features of which we have begun to see in recent days - is the partition of Libya. As you know, Libya used to be a federal state."

Interviewer: "Is partition a possibility?"

Saied: "It is a danger. Some people talk about..."

Interviewer: "Is it a genuine danger?"

Saied: "It is possible that resorting to a federal state will turn out to have been a precursor for secession, as is the case in some other federal countries. Partition is unacceptable. There should be one Libya, and the authority must stem from the will of the Libyan people alone. Partition [of Libya] could turn out to be a precursor for the partition of other countries."

Interviewer: "It could greatly influence the neighboring countries."

Saied: "Yes, it endangers Tunisia and Algeria and I hope that we can always cooperate with the Algerian side, so we can have a united position on the Libyan affair."

[...]

Interviewer: "Has America's Africa Command, AFRICOM, asked you [for permission] to deploy any of its units to secure Tunisia?"

Saied: "Absolutely not. Nobody has dared to ask me personally – I'm talking about many other countries, not just the United States – to [let them] build foreign military bases [in Tunisia]. The military bases are purely Tunisian. There can be no foreign military base in Tunisia. Every grain of desert sand, every grain of Tunisian soil, every drop of Tunisia's territorial waters, and all the air that we breathe in Tunisia, must be Tunisian."