Trump, Egypt's Sisi discuss Libya conflict over phone

US President Donald Trump and his Egyptian counterpart Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi held a phone conversation on Libya, during which they rejected "foreign exploitation" of the conflict, the White House said in a statement.

"Regarding Libya, the leaders rejected foreign exploitation and agreed that parties must take urgent steps to resolve the conflict before Libyans lose control to foreign actors," Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying on Thursday.

Earlier on Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Ankara would introduce a bill to send troops to support the UN-backed Libyan government as soon as Parliament resumes, calling the deployment a response to the country's invitation.

Also on Thursday, Interior Minister of the UN-backed government of Libya Fathi Bashagha revealed that a Turkish-Tunisian-Algerian alliance was formed to support the Libyan government.

"There will be a great cooperation with Turkey, Tunisia and Algeria, and we will be in one alliance," said Bashagha.

He stressed that the UN-backed government of Libya "is the only internationally recognized one, and it fights for democracy by facing extremism and terrorism".

The Tunisian presidency, however, denied later on Thursday that the North African country was involved in any alliance with any party in Libya.

Libya has been locked in a civil war that escalated in 2014, splitting power between two rival governments: the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) based in the capital Tripoli and another in the northeastern city of Tobruk which is allied with the self-proclaimed Libyan National Army (LNA) led by Khalifa Haftar.

Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, France and Russia support Haftar's LNA, while the GNA is backed by Turkey and Qatar Egypt's regional rivals, in addition to Italy.

( With inputs from IANS )