Eastern Libyan tribesmen have stormed oil export ports and announced the closure of terminals cutting the war-torn country’s exports by more than half and ramping up tensions ahead of a summit in Germany to discuss the country's conflict.
The dramatic move came as Germany and the United Nations try to persuade Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, whose forces are based in the east where the oil terminals were closed, and his foreign backers at the Berlin summit on Sunday to halt his nine-month campaign to take Tripoli, the seat of the country’s parallel government.
The tribesmen stormed the eastern Zueitina oil export port on Friday and announced the closure of all terminals in areas under Field Marshal Haftar’s Libyan National Army control.
LNA spokesman Ahmed Mismari told reporters that the "Libyan people" had closed the oil ports.
A source in an eastern oil protection force confirmed to Reuters that exports had been stopped.
Libya's oil production was an estimated 1.3 million barrels a day before the closures.
The tribesmen allied with Field Marshal Haftar earlier accused the Tripoli government of using oil revenues to pay foreign fighters – a reference to Turkey's decision to send soldiers and fighters from Syria's civil war to western Libya to help the Tripoli government fend off the LNA campaign.
At the start of the year, Turkey ratified an agreement to send soldiers to Libya to back the Tripoli administration’s coalition of local militias against the LNA. There are mounting reports that Ankara’s proxy forces in Syria have also sent fighters, paid up to $2000 a month and offered Turkish nationality.
The ports closure mark a setback for the planned Berlin conference on Sunday where Field Marshal Haftar, who backs a parallel government in the east, and the Tripoli prime minister Fayez Al Serraj, as well as their foreign backers and Western powers, are expected.
The one-day summit is the latest in a series of failed conferences and negotiations to stabilize Libya, which has been in chaos since the toppling of Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
Libya’s National Oil Company (NOC) earlier warned against closing terminals in eastern Libya.
"The oil and gas sector is the lifeblood of the Libyan economy ... they should not be used as a card for political bargaining," NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.
The Tripoli-based NOC has sought to stay out of the conflict but faces pressure from the LNA, which controls most of the country's oil ports. NOC channels oil and gas revenue through the central bank, which mainly works with the Tripoli government though it also pays some public servants in the east.
