Premier Giuseppe Conte said he "regretted" at Turkey's withdrawal from Italian-sponsored conference on Libya after it was excluded from eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar's meeting with his UN-backed rival Fayez al-Sarraj and other leaders on the sidelines of the talks.
"I regret that Turkey, its vice-president (Fuat Oktay) and delegation have left, but a careful reading of their statement shows it was not due to an issue with Italy," Conte told press conference at the end of the conference.
Turkey's withdrawal from the two-day conference "does not alter the positive atmosphere that we encountered overall," Conte claimed.
The conference aimed at stabilising Libya had involved delegations from 30 countries, making it inevitable that tensions between some would come to the fore, Conte said.
"We need to look take a long hard look at the reality of international affairs: bringing together 30 countries involved in Libya directly or indirectly means also exposing the meeting to tensions and sensibilities that exist between some of them, Conte stated.
Egypt's president Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, Russian prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, UN envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame, European Council President Donald Tusk and France's foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian also attended the Sarraj-Haftar meeting hosted by Conte ahead of roundtable talks, which were to have included Turkey.
Turkey said in a statement that its exclusion from the meeting was "counterproductive", gave "a very misleading" picture of the key players in the region and was "a very damaging approach" to the Libyan crisis.
Haftar and his supporters accuse Turkey and Qatar (which also attended the conference) of giving military and financial support to his rivals, including Islamists.
