Al-Thinni claims Turkey supplying weapons to Tripoli • Turkey denies

Libya’s internationally recognised Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni said his government would stop dealing with Turkey as it was sending weapons to a rival group in Tripoli so "the Libyan people kill each other", Reuters reports.

"Turkey is a state that is not dealing honestly with us. It's exporting weapons to us so the Libyan people kill each other," he told Egyptian TV channel CBC late on Thursday.

A spokesman for Turkey's foreign ministry strongly denied Thinni's allegations.

"Instead of repeating the same baseless and untrue allegations we advise them to support U.N. efforts for political dialogue," spokesman Tanju Bilgic told Reuters.

"Our policy vis-a-vis Libya is very clear. We are against any external intervention in Libya and we fully support the ongoing political dialogue process under U.N. mediation."

Thinni's government said this week it would exclude companies from future deals, accusing Ankara of backing the Tripoli government and its allied armed groups.

He repeated that Turkish firms would be excluded from contracts in territory controlled by his government in the CBC interview, noting that any outstanding bills would be paid.

"We don't say we are hostile to Turkey but we say we don't deal with it," he said.

Turkey is one of a handful of countries that has publicly received officials from the Tripoli government and parliament.