Hakan Fidan received Saddam Haftar in Ankara on Friday. Türkiye's Foreign Ministry confirmed the meeting and named both men, and that was the whole of it. No agenda, no readout, no joint appearance.
Haftar is the deputy commander of the Libyan National Army, the eastern-based force his father Khalifa Haftar has led since 2014. In 2019 and 2020 that force was outside Tripoli and Türkiye was arming and advising the government it was trying to remove. The offensive failed. Ankara now hosts its deputy commander.
The turn has been under way since April 2025. Defense News reported that Haftar was in Ankara that month for talks with the defense minister and the land forces commander.
In 2019 Türkiye signed a memorandum on maritime jurisdiction with the government the United Nations recognized at the time, under Fayez al-Sarraj. It was widened in 2022 to cover exploring for oil and gas in Libyan waters. Greece and Egypt objected. Türkiye's position is that the memorandum was concluded with Libya's internationally recognized government and stands.
Libya's House of Representatives has never ratified it. That is the hole in the middle of Turkish policy, and it has been there for close to seven years.
Ratification looked close in mid-2025. Then, on 15 December 2025, the speaker of the House, Aguila Saleh, said the memorandum had never been put to the chamber, that the House alone can ratify international agreements, and that the document is legally invalid and not binding on the Libyan state. He added that Libya would deal with any country, Türkiye included, through a legitimate government and on the basis of technical study, with the result referred back to the House. An expert panel was asked to look at it.
That is the eastern camp Ankara is now hosting. Saleh's House is the one aligned with the Haftars, and ratification runs through that chamber. Tripoli cannot supply it.
Meanwhile the drilling contracts are being signed anyway. MOL Group announced on 16 June that it had signed a production sharing agreement with Repsol as operator on 40 percent and Türkiye Petrolleri A.O. on 40 percent, MOL holding the remaining 20 percent, for Libya's O7 offshore block. The block runs to more than 10,300 km² (3,980 sq miles), in water deeper than 1,500 m (4,900 feet), about 140 km (87 miles) northwest of Benghazi.
A Turkish state oil company holds a contract to drill in water off a coast the eastern authorities control, and the argument over whose water it is remains where it was in 2019.
Libya can afford to keep that argument going. It pumps more than 1.4 million barrels a day by the National Oil Corporation's own figures, sits outside OPEC's production cuts, holds Africa's largest proven reserves, and funds roughly 90 percent of the state budget from oil.
Ankara is running its western track at the same time and in the same week. The Ministry of National Defense said on 21 July that the frigate TCG Giresun had given Libyan Navy personnel training at sea, coordinated through the joint training center at Homs. Turkish forces stay in the country under a parliamentary authorization extended by 24 months from 2 January 2026, published as decision 1481 in the Resmî Gazete of 24 December 2025. It runs to January 2028.
Fidan is one of several officials taking these meetings this summer. Al Jazeera reported this month that Haftar met Pakistan's military chief, Asim Munir, in Rawalpindi in June, and, citing a Chatham House researcher, that he met US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington in early July. The same reporting describes a US reunification plan led by Massad Boulos, President Trump's adviser on Arab, Middle Eastern and African affairs, offering American oil investment if the rival administrations govern together. Leaked details of the plan, per Al Jazeera, would leave Abdul Hamid Dbeibah as head of government and give Haftar the presidency in all but name, under a 36-month transition. None of that is confirmed by the parties.
The Libyans are talking to each other too. Chiefs of staff from east and west met at Sirte on 12 July with the 5+5 military commission and the UN mission, to discuss putting the armed forces back together. The statement came from Haftar's office and reported no outcomes.
A commander who may end up running the country spent June and July being received in Rawalpindi, Washington and Ankara. Only one of those capitals has an unratified sea map sitting in his parliament.
Repsol, TPAO and MOL owe Libya 1,500 km of 2D seismic, 2,300 km² of 3D, and one exploration well. Survey boats can work straight through a legal argument about who owns the water. A well is harder to drill through one.