Libya Votes Yes on Turkish Sea Deal

Libya's parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a maritime agreement with Turkey, establishing a direct economic corridor between the two nations. The decision reverses the previous stance of the eastern government and immediately intensifies a territorial dispute with Greece in the eastern Mediterranean.

The corridor connects the southern coast of Turkey with the northern coast of Libya. Both governments aim to secure joint rights to exploit recent discoveries of oil and gas deposits in the area. Estimates indicate that natural gas reserves in this zone are worth several hundred billion US dollars.

The agreement was originally negotiated in 2019 between Turkey and the UN-recognized Government of National Accord in western Libya. At that time, the rival government in eastern Libya opposed the deal. The eastern parliament has now ratified the pact, a move that Turkey's Foreign Ministry welcomed.

Greece has firmly rejected the accord, arguing that the planned corridor ignores its island territories, including Crete, Karpathos, and Rhodes. Athens maintains that these islands possess a comprehensive exclusive economic zone. The Greek Foreign Ministry stated on the social platform X that the EU supports its rejection, calling the memorandum null and void because it violates the sovereign rights of third states and contradicts the Law of the Sea.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, echoed Athens' concerns. She wrote on X that the Libyan vote infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states.

The core of the legal dispute centers on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Greece relies on Article 121, which grants inhabited islands that support their own economic life the same economic zone rights as mainland territory. Athens points to a 2022 International Court of Justice ruling involving Colombia and Nicaragua, which held that overlapping maritime interests require a fair demarcation based on coastlines and geography.

Turkey argues that the geography of the Mediterranean deserves special consideration. Ankara claims that if every small Greek island near the Turkish and Cypriot coasts received a full economic zone, Turkey would be largely cut off from the open sea. As a non-signatory to the convention, Turkey does not accept arbitration by a UN tribunal, and legal experts remain divided on what constitutes a fair division in this region.

The political dynamics in Libya have shifted since 2019, when Turkey intervened militarily to support the Tripoli government against an offensive by eastern General Khalifa Hifter. A subsequent rapprochement brought Turkish firms billions in reconstruction contracts. Turkey's state oil company TPAO is now working with Libya's National Oil Corporation on seismic surveys off the coast. Ankara also supplies weapons and training to Hifter's forces, countering Egyptian and Russian influence in the east.

The new corridor also poses a threat to the planned EastMed pipeline, which is designed to carry gas from Israel and Cyprus through Greece to bolster EU energy security. The Turkish corridor cuts across the pipeline's proposed route. Turkey has argued that any cable or pipeline projects on its claimed continental shelf require its consent, suggesting the region could split into a Turkey-Libya axis and an EU-supported grouping of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel.