LIBYA’s House of Representatives have voted to cancel an agreement between the north African nation and Turkey.

The unanimous vote put an end to an agreement between prime minister Fayez Sarraj and the Turkish government which would have resulted in the deployment of Turkish troops to the country.

Last week, Sarraj signed two agreements with Turkey. One agreement allowed the nation to send troops to Libya to support the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli, and another which specified maritime borders.

Earlier last year, a renegade former Gaddafi general and CIA asset named Khalifa Haftar launched an attack on the internationally recognised GNA.

In doing so, Haftar compromised a UN-brokered peace process that seemed to be on the brink of success.

Currently the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, France and Russia are supporting Haftar. So are Russian mercenaries from the likes of the Kremlin-linked Wagner Group and African mercenaries from Sudan and Chad. Meanwhile Turkey, Qatar, Italy and other European countries are supporting the GNA.

The emergency vote, held yesterday by the parliament in Tobruk – where the House of Representatives is based – also agreed that all those who were responsible for the agreement with Turkey would be referred to prosecutors for high treason.

The parliament is one of three powers struggling for control alongside the GNA and Hafta’s Libyan National Army.

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Led by speaker Aguila Saleh, it declared the memorandum illegal since it did not pass parliamentary assent.

Saleh described the agreement as a “flagrant violation of international law”.

Despite global criticism, on Thursday, Turkey’s parliament gave its president – Recep Tayyip Erdogan – a year to figure out what military support to provide to the GNA, which has been under a sustained attack from Haftar’s forces since April.

The violence has displaced thousands of people and trapped hundreds of migrants and refugees in detention centres run by militias or human traffickers. This continues on from the conflict in the country during the reign and eventual fall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in Autumn 2011.

Haftar currently holds Libyan territories in the east of the country, and his intention is to “free” Tripoli from militant groups and the GNA. Following the news of the agreement to deploy Turkish troops, Haftar called “men and women, soldiers and civilians” to take up arms and “defend our land and our honour”.

In a televised broadcast on Friday, he said: “We accept the challenge and declare jihad and a call to arms.”

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Moussa Faki Mahamat, the chair of the African Union Commission, voiced grave concern over potential international “interference” in Libya.

Faki said: “The various threats of political and military interference in the internal affairs of the country increase the risk of a confrontation whose motives have nothing to do with the fundamental interests of the Libyan people and their aspirations for freedom, peace, democracy and development.”

He urged African countries to find a peaceful solution to the worsening crisis.