Europe 1 with AFP 6:40 p.m., October 09, 2022

Nikos Dendias, Greek Minister and Foreign Affairs, and Sameh Choukri, his Egyptian counterpart, met on Sunday and deemed "illegal and non-admissible" the memorandum on prospecting for hydrocarbons in Libyan waters signed between Libya and Turkey.

The Egyptian and Greek foreign ministers on Sunday ruled "illegal" the memorandum on prospecting for hydrocarbons in Libyan waters, signed between the Libyan government based in Tripoli and Turkey three years after a controversial maritime delimitation agreement.

"This agreement threatens stability and security in the Mediterranean," Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said in Cairo. 

An "illegal and inadmissible" agreement for Athens

Tripoli, he further accused, "does not have the necessary sovereignty over this area" to seal such an agreement which is therefore "illegal and inadmissible".

In addition, added his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Choukri, with an "expired" mandate, "the government of Tripoli does not have the legitimacy to sign agreements".

Since March, two rival governments have been vying for power in Libya, which has been in chaos since the uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. The memorandum of understanding signed last Monday in Tripoli by a high-level Turkish delegation comes after the signing of a maritime delimitation agreement in 2019 through which Ankara asserts rights over large areas in the eastern Mediterranean.

Greece and Egypt but also Cyprus believe that this agreement violates their economic rights in a sector where vast gas deposits have been discovered in recent years.

"We will use all legal means to defend our rights," warned Dendias.

The EU has been denouncing the new maritime delimitation since 2019 and Paris has judged the memorandum between Tripoli and Ankara "not in accordance with international law".

In return for the 2019 agreement, Turkey had helped the government in Tripoli to repel an offensive in June 2020 by its rival, Marshal Khalifa Haftar, a strongman in eastern Libya, to take the capital.

Ankara had sent in military advisers and drones, inflicting a string of defeats on the Marshal's forces backed by Russia and Ankara's regional rivals including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.