Merkel: Turkey Has Reservations about Troops Withdrawal from Libya

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, on Friday, Turkey has reservations about pulling troops from Libya.

Merkel was speaking at an international conference on Libya hosted by Paris where she noted that Russia has said it was willing to back a reciprocal withdrawal of foreign forces from the north African country.

"There are still some reservations on the Turkish side but the Russia side has acknowledged that it could be done in a reciprocal way," she said. "The elections on Dec. 24 play a decisive role. The preparations for the elections have to be completed in such a way that in the end, the result is accepted."

Besides the German Chancellor, the Paris conference included French President Emmanuel Macron; Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, Tunisian Prime Minister Najla Bouden, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, the UN envoy to Libya Ján Kubiš, the US vice president Kamala Harris, and Libya’s Prime Minister Abdel-Hamid Dbeibah as well as the head of the country’s Presidential Council, Mohamed Menfi.