TR
Italian Newspaper La Repubblica: Greek-Egyptian Pact on Maritime Borders
Greek-Egyptian Pact on Maritime Borders
But Türkiye is not going along with it.
Egypt and Greece are signing a maritime agreement that runs counter to Libya and Türkiye. This unexpected new agreement declares the intention to cancel the Memorandum of Understanding initialed between Tripoli and Ankara less than a year ago and amounts to throwing it in the bin. It clashes and overlaps with a large part of the areas covered by the memorandum drawn up in November 2019. Thus, in short, the Eastern Mediterranean is becoming a theater stage on which powers that have discovered the region's strategic potential and want to include it within their borders play out their roles.
The Foreign Ministers of Egypt and Greece, Sameh Shoukry and Nikos Dendias, signed in Cairo a strategic agreement drawing the maritime borders between the two countries and creating an exclusive economic zone. The ministers underlined the anti-Turkish thinking behind the initiative. At the same time in Beirut, the anti-Ankara front, in which Macron and Paris also play a role, sought to strike another blow. Referring to the gas and oil in the region, Shoukry announced the agreement, which "makes it possible to benefit from the resources in the region". His Greek counterpart Dendias added that this agreement is completely contrary and opposed to the agreement signed between Tripoli and Ankara. According to Dendias, this pact will allow the two countries to face all difficulties shoulder to shoulder.
Türkiye's response was swift and harsh, in a note from its Ministry of Foreign Affairs: "There is no maritime boundary between Greece and Egypt. This is an agreement that violates Libya's rights. Türkiye does not in any way recognize the legal validity of this announced and signed agreement. Türkiye will not allow any activity in this area."
The Memorandum signed on 27 November 2019 between the Erdoğan and Libyan al-Sarraj administrations had been a turning point for the Eastern Mediterranean.
It gave the green light to Ankara's armed forces so that the opponents of General Khalifa Haftar, backed by Russian mercenaries, could push him out of Libyan territory, pushing Tripoli and its people toward Cyrenaica. For Türkiye, which has faced various accusations, such as landing its troops on the Libyan coast in the free zone allocated to Turkish vessels and breaching the embargo by leaving control neither to the French nor to the Americans, an intense drilling season is about to begin, not within the maritime borders of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus but in the south, on the Greek Cypriot side, the only one with international recognition. This arrangement increased Erdoğan's power to explore the seas and gave him an enviable strategic position that would be hard to give up. This is precisely why Greece and Egypt, together with France and Russia, took action. Now, just by looking at the map, we can see that there will be a very dangerous crossfire in the area once called "Mare Nostrum" (Our Sea).
