A Libyan court has halted an agreement between Libya and Turkey for offshore oil and gas exploration, which enraged neighbors Egypt and Greece.
The agreement concerned waters claimed by Libya and Turkey but disputed by Egypt and Greece, according to Reuters in a news report citing an unnamed source. According to Reuters, the Libyan government can appeal the ruling.
Greece’s Permanent Representative at the UN, Maria Theofili, described the deal as one “violating the sovereign rights of Greece, a violation of international law, and a deliberate escalation that undermines stability in the region.”
The deal, signed in October last year, followed an earlier security agreement, inked in 2019, that demarcated the maritime border between Libya and Turkey—the same demarcation that angered Egypt and Greece.
“We’ve signed a memorandum of understanding on hydrocarbon exploration in Libya’s territorial waters and on Libyan soil by mixed Turkish and Libyan companies,” Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu, said at the time, as quoted by AFP.
The official noted, then, that the deal is only between Libya and Turkey, “two sovereign countries; it’s win-win for both, and other countries have no right to interfere.”
The eastern Mediterranean was put in the spotlight by a series of large gas discoveries off the coast of Israel in the past decade or so, as well as discoveries in Turkish and Cypriot waters. The potential of the region has become particularly relevant now that Europe is looking for new sources of gas.
At the same time, the events surrounding the deal with Turkey had contributed to the deterioration of the internal political situation in Libya, as Ankara signed its deals with the Government of National Unity—the entity recognized by the UN but not by rival political factions in Libya itself.
