Tripoli, 9 December:
The president of the General National Congress, Mohamed Magarief, has said that Turkish companies operating in Libya that suffered losses as a result of the revolution last year will be compensated. He was speaking in Istanbul after meeting with members of the Turkish business community at a dinner hosted by the Turkish-Libyan Business Council
The same message was given in Ankara on Thursday at the start of his three-day visit to Turkey. At a press conference following talks with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, Magarief said companies were welcome to return. Libya would take care of any losses, he declared.
“The new Libya was not established for injustice and for the violation of the rights of a party”, he said. There were problems, he added, and these would be investigated. “No Libyan authority is planning to violate any company’s rights whether Turkish or from another country.”
Despite reports that some companies were returning, the vast majority of Turkish companies have been waiting on the sidelines in part because of concerns about security but also because of demands for compensation for lost equipment and to take into account the increased costs of construction in the past year.
Turkish companies were involved in an estimated $25 billion-worth of the total $120-billion contracts in Libya before the revolution. Almost all are on hold. One notable exception is Gama which is only now recommencing world on Sirte power station. The rest, however, say they are waiting for concrete Libya proposals on compensation before returning.
In his speech in Istanbul, Magarief said that Turkey had supported not only Libya in tis revolution but all the Arab Spring states. [/restrict]
