Libya's Eastern Parliament Ratifies $100 Billion Sea Deal With Turkey

Natural gas reserves estimated at several hundred billion US dollars could lie beneath the seabed of a new maritime corridor between Libya and Turkey. The Eastern Libyan Parliament unanimously ratified the agreement on Tuesday, formalizing a direct economic link that had been disputed for years.

The corridor connects Turkey's southern coast to Libya's northern coast. It was originally agreed in 2019 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 that position.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry welcomed the vote. The shift in Libyan politics reflects a broader rapprochement since 2019, when Turkey intervened militarily to support the Tripoli government against an offensive by General Khalifa Hifter. Turkish firms have since won reconstruction contracts worth billions of dollars. The state oil company TPAO is working with Libya's National Oil Corporation on seismic surveys, and Ankara supplies weapons and training to Hifter's forces to counter Egyptian and Russian influence.

The agreement ignores the exclusive economic zones claimed by Greece around islands including Crete, Karpathos, and Rhodes. Athens says it holds a comprehensive exclusive economic zone around these territories. The Greek Foreign Ministry announced on X that it firmly rejects the accord with the backing of the European Union. The EU stated that the memorandum is null and void because it violates the sovereign rights of third states and is inconsistent with the Law of the Sea.

Kaja Kallas, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, wrote on X that she had raised the Libyan vote. She stressed that the agreement infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states.

The legal dispute centers on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Article 121 grants inhabited islands that support an economic life of their own the same exclusive economic zone rights as mainland territory. Greece relies on this provision to cover Crete, Rhodes, and Lesbos. It also points to a 2022 International Court of Justice ruling involving Colombia and Nicaragua. That ruling held that overlapping interests require a fair demarcation weighing coastlines, geography, and the effects of any boundary.

Turkey argues that Mediterranean geography deserves special weight. It states that if every small Greek island near its coast received a full exclusive economic zone, Turkey would be largely cut off from the open sea. Ankara never signed the convention and does not accept arbitration by a UN tribunal. Legal experts disagree on what a fair division would look like.

The new corridor cuts across the planned route of the EastMed pipeline. That project is meant to carry gas from Israel and Cyprus through Greece to bolster EU energy security. Turkey has argued that cable or pipeline projects on its claimed continental shelf need its consent. The region could split into two blocs: a Turkey-Libya axis and an EU-supported grouping of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, and Israel.