Libya Ratifies Turkish Sea Corridor

Residents of coastal cities in the eastern Mediterranean now live under a new economic reality. On Tuesday, Libya’s parliament voted unanimously to approve a maritime agreement with Turkey. The pact establishes a direct economic corridor linking the southern coast of Turkey with the northern coast of Libya. This move sharpens existing geopolitical tensions in the region, particularly with Greece.

The corridor targets a specific stretch of the sea floor where large deposits of oil and gas were recently discovered. Estimates suggest the natural gas reserves in this area could be worth several hundred billion US dollars. Ankara and Tripoli intend to secure their economic rights to these resources and develop them jointly.

The 2019 agreement that first established this corridor was signed between Turkey and the UN-recognized Government of National Accord in western Libya. At that time, the rival government in eastern Libya opposed the deal. The eastern parliament has now reversed its previous stance, effectively unifying the country’s position on this issue. Turkey’s Foreign Ministry welcomed the latest parliamentary vote.

Greece objects to the new arrangement because the planned corridor bypasses several of its islands, including Crete, Karpathos, and Rhodes. Athens maintains that it holds a comprehensive exclusive economic zone, or EEZ, around these territories. The Greek Foreign Ministry announced its opposition on social media, stating that it firmly rejects the accord with the backing of the European Union.

The EU described the memorandum as null and void. Brussels argued that the deal violates the sovereign rights of third states and conflicts with international Law of the Sea principles. Kaja Kallas, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, echoed this sentiment. She wrote on X that she had raised the Libyan vote and stressed that the agreement infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states.

The legal dispute centers on the interpretation of maritime boundaries. Greece relies on Article 121 of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. This article grants inhabited islands that support an economic life of their own the same EEZ rights as mainland territory. Athens cites a 2022 International Court of Justice ruling involving Colombia and Nicaragua, which emphasized fair demarcation based on coastlines and geography.

Turkey argues that the specific geography of the Mediterranean requires special consideration. Ankara claims that granting full EEZs to every small Greek island near its coast would cut Turkey off from the open sea. Turkey never signed the UN convention and does not accept arbitration by its tribunals. Legal experts continue to debate what constitutes a fair division of these waters.

Political dynamics in Libya have shifted since 2019, when civil war was active and Turkey intervened militarily to support the Tripoli government against an offensive by General Khalifa Hifter. A subsequent diplomatic effort by Turkey improved relations with Hifter’s camp in the east. Turkish firms have won reconstruction contracts worth billions of dollars, and the state oil company TPAO is working with Libya’s National Oil Corporation on seismic surveys.

Turkey also supplies weapons and training to Hifter’s forces, a move intended to counter Egyptian and Russian influence in the region. The new maritime agreement threatens the planned EastMed pipeline, which was designed to transport gas from Israel and Cyprus through Greece to the EU. The new corridor cuts across the proposed route for that pipeline. Turkey has argued that cable or pipeline projects on its claimed continental shelf require its consent.

The region may soon divide into two distinct economic blocs. One axis would consist of Turkey and Libya. The other would be an EU-supported grouping of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel. The parliamentary vote in Libya marks the formal consolidation of the first bloc's maritime claims.