The Turkish foreign minister has denied Ankara’s involvement in a shipment of arms sent from Turkey to a port near Tripoli last week, after the announcement of a joint Turkish-Libyan investigation into the incident.
“We are starting an investigation to determine how the arms were loaded into containers and how they entered Libya,” Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu stated at a press conference during a visit to Libya.
The UN-backed Libyan government released a statement following talks in Tripoli between Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Serraj and Çavuşoğlu, Reuters reported.
The statement quoted Çavuşoğlu as saying Ankara rejected such actions “which do not represent the policy or approach of the Turkish state.”
The weapons were seized by customs on Tuesday in the port of Khoms, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Tripoli.
The consignment sent from Turkey contained 3,000 Turkish-made pistols as well as other pistols, hunting rifles and ammunition, Benghazi’s Benina airport customs services said on their official Facebook account.