Bad news for Greece from Libya: Aguila Saleh out as speaker, replaced by the head of the Libyan-Turkish friendship committee

After twelve years at the head of Libya’s House of Representatives, Aguila Saleh has been pushed out of the post, and for Athens the development is not good news. The 82-year-old politician was the man who, despite the pressure, never brought the 2019 Turkish-Libyan memorandum to ratification in the body, which sits in Benghazi, and who kept an open channel with Greece. His place was taken by the Tobruk deputy As-Salhin Abdulnabi al-Obeidi, who has served as head of the parliamentary Libyan-Turkish friendship committee.

How the change happened

According to a statement by the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), at the session of October 5 in Benghazi, with at least 102 deputies present, 98 voted to change the rule under which the presidency of the body rotates every 12 months. The next day, October 6, with at least 111 deputies present, a new bureau was elected with al-Obeidi as speaker. UNSMIL “notes” the election and says it will work with the new bureau on the political roadmap, the unification of institutions and elections.

Saleh contested the process, arguing that the first vote was not official and produces no legal effects, and he had cancelled the session he himself had convened.

Behind the removal lies a reshuffle of power in eastern Libya. Saleh was for years a key ally of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, but lost ground as the field marshal’s sons, above all Saddam Haftar, consolidated their control. Chatham House researcher Emadeddin Badi called him “the latest victim” of Saddam Haftar’s effort to concentrate power in the East. The change comes as a US initiative to unify Libya’s institutions advances, in which Saddam Haftar appears open and Saleh was far more cautious.

Why this is bad news for Greece

Saleh was not an unconditional friend of Greece. In December 2025 he described the Turkish-Libyan memorandum as void, but in the same interview he questioned the effect of Crete. He was, however, the institutional barrier to ratification of the memorandum by eastern Libya: he insisted that no international agreement is valid unless the House approves it, and his House did not approve it.

In Athens, Parliament Speaker Nikitas Kaklamanis had asked him that the memorandum not be ratified and later be annulled, and had thanked him for his letter to the UN Secretary-General asking for its rejection.

His successor comes from the same tribe and the same city, but his role in the Libyan-Turkish friendship committee and the backing of the Haftar family, which in recent years has approached Ankara, suggest that eastern Libya may become more receptive to Turkish pressure over the memorandum. So far the new speaker has taken no public position on the issue.