Türkiye rejects Greek claims over Libya deal at UN

NEW YORK

Greece and Türkiye clashed over the maritime agreement between Ankara and Libya during a United Nations Security Council debate on maritime security on Oct. 29, with both sides defending their positions on the legality of the 2019 memorandum.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis used a map during the open debate to criticize the Türkiye-Libya memorandum, arguing that it disregarded the sovereign rights of Greek islands and violated fundamental principles of international law.

Libya’s House of Representatives unanimously approved the maritime boundary agreement with Türkiye on Oct. 20, reversing its previous rejection of the deal and a decision to sever political ties with Ankara, according to a statement from the Libyan parliament.

The deal has long been a source of regional tensions, with Greece, Egypt and Greek Cyprus opposing it.

“The agreement completely disregards geography. It ignores the very existence of the Greek islands. It is as though these islands simply disappear from the way Türkiye and Libya view the region,” the Greek premier told the council.

Responding to Mitsotakis, Türkiye’s Permanent Representative to the U.N. Ahmet Yıldız rejected Athens’ characterization of the agreement, arguing that the Security Council was not a judicial body mandated to delimit maritime zones.

He said maps could illustrate competing claims but could not establish their legal validity.

Yıldız defended the memorandum and pointed to its recent ratification by Libya’s House of Representatives as evidence of domestic support for the agreement.

He also rejected claims that the deal prejudged the maritime rights of third countries, stressing that it neither determined nor infringed upon the rights of states that were not parties to it.

Türkiye did not dispute the existence, population or sovereignty of Greek islands, Yıldız said, but argued that the legal issue was how much weight islands should be given when maritime zones are delimited in areas where claims overlap.