Libya's UN-backed Prime Minister Fayez Seraj said his government will not agree to take back migrants setting sail from Libya in an attempt to reach Europe, in an interview with a German newspaper, Sputnik reported.
This comes after 117 bodies of people believed to be African migrants whose boats capsized in the Mediterranean were washed up Friday on a Libyan beach. Libya serves as a springboard into Europe for hundreds of refugees from across the continent.
"We will not accept EU sending migrants back to us. Europe must find ways to bring them back to their countries of origin. They cannot stay with us," Seraj, the head of the Government of National Accord, told Die Welt newspaper on Sunday.
"The situation with migrants coming to us from the south is totally different from that in Turkey. They cannot be compared," Seraj maintained, adding Libya was instead discussing EU lending it boats and training its coast guards.
The European Union already has an agreement with Turkey which requires Ankara to take back migrants making a crossing into Europe in exchange for a resettlement program and political concessions.