ISTANBUL — Russia and Turkey have called for a cease-fire in Libya to begin this weekend, stepping in on Wednesday to try to resolve a conflict that Western powers and the United Nations have struggled to end.
Analysts say the Russians and Turks are seeking to exploit a diplomatic void left by Europe’s failure to end the fighting in Libya. A German-led effort to hold an international conference on Libya has come to nothing, and the United Nations Security Council has not called for a cease-fire.
The Russian and Turkish foreign ministers issued a joint statement calling for the cease-fire on Wednesday after President Vladimir V. Putin and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met and presided over the inauguration of the TurkStream gas pipeline in Istanbul.
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It is not clear how much Russia and Turkey can influence events on the ground, but Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan have met regularly to discuss military deployments in Syria, and have declared Libya a priority.
Russia and Turkey support different sides in the conflict. Russian contract soldiers have been deployed for months in support of the commander in eastern Libya, Gen. Khalifa Hifter, who is trying to take control of the capital, Tripoli. General Hifter’s forces seized the coastal city of Surt on Monday.
Turkey has been supporting forces loyal to the United Nations-backed government of Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj in Tripoli. Turkey announced last week that it would deploy troops to coordinate and train Libyan forces.
The deployment remains small, with 35 Turkish troops in Libya so far, led by a lieutenant general who will command an operations center, Turkish news outlets have reported.
The two presidents appear to have made the decision between themselves and presented it almost as a snub to European and other powers that have supported different sides in the conflict.
The Russian-Turkish statement said the cease-fire would begin at “00:00 hours on Jan. 12” and would be “supported by the necessary measures” to stabilize conditions on the ground. The cease-fire, it said, is aimed at supporting a resumption of United Nations-backed negotiations between the warring parties.
But as Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan met in Istanbul, European officials mounted their own effort to forge a cease-fire. General Hifter traveled to Rome where he held talks with Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy. At the same time, Mr. al-Sarraj flew to Brussels to meet with the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell.
Turkey has supported rebel factions that rose up against the former Libyan leader Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in 2011 and has provided assistance to the Tripoli government alongside Italy.
Russia became involved in Libya only last year, in the absence of the United States in the country. It has joined Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in backing General Hifter.
The cease-fire announced by the Russian and Turkish leaders may not be the dramatic breakthrough that Libya so desperately needs, analysts say, but more an attempt by Mr. Putin and Mr. Erdogan to set the terms of any future peace talks by elbowing aside their European rivals.
“What we’re seeing is competition over who defines the international framework for any negotiations to end the conflict,” said Wolfram Lacher, a Libya scholar at the German Institute for International and Security. “Putin and Erdogan are mounting a challenge to the European claim to leadership on Libya.”
The European peace effort is hampered by internal division. While most countries support the Government of National Accord — the official title for the government — France is viewed as being sympathetic to Mr. Hifter. The discovery of a cache of French-owned missiles at a military base in Libya last summer stoked suspicions that Paris had provided Mr. Hifter with military support, despite a United Nations arms embargo.
And although ministers from many European countries, as well as the United States, complain about the interference of foreign countries in the Libyan conflict, they have been reluctant to openly criticize Mr. Hifter’s Arab military backers, most notably the United Arab Emirates.
“The Europeans and Americans let this conflict drag on from April until it reached a stalemate,” Mr. Lacher said. “That allowed the Russians to step in, with a few hundred mercenaries on the ground, and make a difference. The question now is whether they are willing to raise their investment to the level that would make them king makers in Libya, along with the Turks. That is not clear yet.”
Declan Walsh contributed reporting from Cairo.
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