Libya's Lawmakers Back Sea Accord With Turkey

Libya's parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve a maritime agreement with Turkey. The deal creates a direct economic corridor linking Turkey's southern coast to Libya's northern shore. Turkey's Foreign Ministry welcomed the vote.

The corridor was first agreed in 2019 between Turkey and the UN-recognized Government of National Accord in western Libya. The rival government in eastern Libya opposed it then. The eastern parliament has now reversed that stance.

The area holds large oil and gas deposits. Estimates place natural gas reserves worth several hundred billion US dollars beneath the seabed there. Ankara and Tripoli intend to secure economic rights to these resources and develop them jointly.

The route passes waters near the Greek islands of Crete, Karpathos and Rhodes. Athens claims a comprehensive exclusive economic zone around those islands. Greece's Foreign Ministry said on X that it rejects the accord, adding that the European Union called the memorandum null and void because it violates the sovereign rights of third states and conflicts with the Law of the Sea.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, wrote on X that she had raised the vote and said it infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states.

Greece rests its case on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Article 121 gives inhabited islands that support an economic life of their own the same exclusive economic zone rights as mainland territory. Athens applies this to Crete, Rhodes and Lesbos. It also points to a 2022 International Court of Justice ruling on Colombia and Nicaragua that held overlapping interests require fair demarcation weighing coastlines, geography and boundary effects. Turkey never signed the convention and rejects arbitration by a UN tribunal. Ankara argues that Mediterranean geography requires special weight and that full zone rights for small islands near Turkish and Cypriote coasts would leave Turkey largely cut off from the open sea.

Turkey and Libya's eastern leadership have drawn closer since 2019, when civil war raged and Turkey intervened militarily to support the Tripoli government against an offensive by eastern General Khalifa Hifter. Turkish firms have won reconstruction contracts worth billions. Turkey's state oil company TPAO works with Libya's National Oil Corporation on seismic survey plans off the coast. Turkey also supplies weapons and training to Hifter's forces. The planned EastMed pipeline, meant to carry gas from Israel and Cyprus through Greece to the EU, crosses the corridor's route. Turkey argues that pipeline projects on its claimed continental shelf require its consent.