Turkey raises suspects in the Mediterranean by preventing Operation Irini from inspecting a cargo ship

A Turkish warship has prevented the new EU naval mission, named Irini and set up to secure the arms embargo on Libya, from inspecting a cargo ship suspected of carrying arms to the North African nation. A spokesman for the European Union's External Action Service has confirmed this incident, which highlights the failures of the mission launched by Brussels in 2020. 

This mission has the authority to carry out inspections on the high seas off the coast of Libya of vessels that there is reason to believe are carrying arms or related material to or from Libya. In this case, a Greek Navy vessel attempted to inspect a cargo ship off the Libyan coast on Wednesday, but was unable to do so due to the presence of a Turkish escort. 

EU Foreign Affairs spokesman Peter Stano confirmed that the Operation Irini vessel had tried to approach the freighter, but that the "response was not positive", so the inspection could not take place. "We are now in the process of further verification of information and investigating the reasons given for this behaviour," he said, in statements collected by digital Middle East Online. 

"Only political solutions and full respect for the UN arms embargo can resolve the Libyan crisis. But diplomacy cannot succeed if it is not backed by action. This operation will be essential and will make a clear contribution to the promotion of peace in our immediate neighbourhood through a permanent ceasefire". With these words, Josep Borrell, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union, presented the Irini mission (which means 'peace' in Greek). 

One of the main objectives of this mission is to stop the flow of arms to Libya, a country devastated by the war between Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, leader of the Libyan National Army (LNA), and Fayez Sarraj, Prime Minister of the Government of National Accord (GNA). Ankara has played a fundamental role in the conflict that the North African nation is suffering as a result of the agreement signed last November between Turkey and the GNA.

Within the framework of this security and economic cooperation agreement, the country presided by Erdogan has intensified its presence in Libya, sending hundreds of mercenaries and dozens of shipments of military material. The Irini mission has registered, for the moment, more than 75 ships, according to Stano. Without the ship's consent, the operation is not authorized to inspect their cargo, so they are limited to reporting to a U.N. monitoring group.