Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that the agreement between his country and Libya on the determination of maritime influence in the Mediterranean is a sovereign right of both countries and that Turkey will not discuss with anyone, while Greece said its Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will meet tomorrow with Erdogan in an attempt to ease tensions over Maritime borders.
Speaking at a press conference in Ankara before heading to London for a summit of NATO leaders, the Turkish president said that the Turkish-Libyan agreement may be a real inconvenience to France, "but we confirm that the agreement is a sovereign right of Turkey and Libya, and we will not discuss this Right with nobody. "
On November 27, Turkey and Libya signed two memorandums of understanding: the first on security and military cooperation, and the second on the delimitation of maritime areas of influence aimed at protecting the rights of the two countries stemming from international law.
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Western borders
A spokesman for the Turkish Foreign Ministry said the agreement with Libya includes the delimitation of part of the western borders of Turkey's maritime sovereignty in the eastern Mediterranean.
Libyan Foreign Minister Mohamed Sayyala said the memorandum of understanding signed with Turkey was not an infringement on the sovereignty of any country. He added in a letter to the foreign ministers of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, that the memorandum is a safeguard for the Libyan national interest, and it serves brothers in the first place.
The agreement has aroused the ire of Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, as the Egyptian and Cypriot foreign ministries considered it legally non-binding and non-binding, while Athens threatened to expel the Libyan ambassador by Friday if he did not submit a copy of the memorandum of understanding signed between Tripoli and Ankara.
On the other hand, Erdogan said that the tripartite coordination between Greece, Egypt and Cyprus will not affect the agreement between Turkey and Libya on the definition of maritime areas of influence between the two countries.
The Turkish president added that his government will present the agreement with Libya to the Turkish parliament, expressing his hope that it will be ratified by majority in order to enter into force.
Shelf Map
The Director General of the Maritime and Air Borders of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Chagatay Arges, published yesterday through his Twitter account a map showing the borders of the continental shelf and the exclusive economic zone of Turkey in the Mediterranean after the signing of the recent agreement with Libya.
Türkiye'nin Doğu Akdeniz'deki KS / MEB sınırları: |
On the other hand, the Greek government spokesman told reporters that the prime minister will meet with the Turkish president on Wednesday in an attempt to ease disputes over energy exploration and the agreement between Ankara and Libya on the maritime areas in the Mediterranean.
good neighborly
The spokesman said the meeting would take place on the sidelines of a NATO summit in London, hoping it would "pave the way for a new form of respect for international law and good-neighborly relations between the two countries."
Athens says the Libyan-Turkish agreement makes no sense geographically because it ignores the Greek island of Crete between the Libyan and Turkish coasts.
It is noteworthy that many differences have emerged in recent years between the countries of the Eastern Mediterranean region after the discovery of huge reserves of oil and gas, especially between Turkey and between Egypt, Israel and Cyprus.