Fresh geopolitical fault lines have re-emerged across the Eastern Mediterranean after Egypt issued a formal, categorical rejection of the recently ratified maritime boundary agreement between Turkey and eastern Libya, labeling the pact entirely null and void while reaffirming its own 2020 demarcation deal with neighboring Greece.
In an official statement released Wednesday, Egypt’s foreign ministry doubled down on its position, stating that the memorandum of understanding between Turkey and eastern Libya carries no legal weight, and that its recent ratification by the Libyan House of Representatives holds no legal ramifications for Cairo whatsoever.
The sharp rebuke comes just one day after the Libyan House of Representatives — based in the Haftar-controlled eastern region of the divided North African country — delivered a surprising unanimous vote to approve the agreement, a deal that the body had publicly opposed for nearly five years. The accord was first signed in 2019 with Libya’s UN-backed Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, and its ratification marks a significant shift in eastern Libya’s foreign policy amid shifting power dynamics within the region.
Libya has remained politically split since 2014, with eastern authorities led by veteran general Khalifa Haftar opposing the Tripoli-based central government. Back in 2019, Haftar launched a major military offensive to seize Tripoli, a campaign that ultimately failed after Turkey deployed military advisors, weapons, and mercenary support to prop up the Tripoli government. At the time, Egypt, alongside the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, threw its backing behind Haftar. But in recent years, Haftar’s son and designated political heir Saddam Haftar has actively cultivated closer bilateral ties with Ankara, as the general’s family pursues new alliances to solidify their hold on power in any future Libyan power-sharing arrangement. Saddam Haftar personally welcomed the deal’s ratification in a social media post Tuesday, and regional diplomatic sources indicate he is actively seeking Turkish backing for a broader national power-sharing agreement with Tripoli’s current leaders.
The 2019 Turkish-Libyan agreement sparked immediate alarm across Athens and Cairo from its inception, as the deal enshrines sweeping Turkish territorial claims to large swathes of the Eastern Mediterranean, a region rich in untapped offshore energy reserves. To counter the Turkish-Libyan pact, Greece and Egypt moved quickly to sign their own mutually agreed maritime boundary demarcation agreement in 2020, a deal that directly contradicts the territorial terms laid out by Ankara and Tripoli in 2019.
Cairo’s latest rejection of the eastern Libya-Turkey deal holds particular significance because Egypt has long been aligned with eastern Libya’s leadership. While Egypt and Turkey have pursued a gradual rapprochement in recent years, coordinating policy on regional flashpoints including the Horn of Africa, the maritime dispute remains a core sticking point between the two former rivals. Last year, Athens formally requested Cairo’s support to prevent eastern Libyan lawmakers from moving forward with ratification of the agreement, and just days before Egypt’s latest statement, an Egyptian diplomatic delegation traveled to Athens to hold in-depth consultations with Greek officials on the Libyan situation.
Though Cairo was ultimately unable to block the ratification, diplomatic observers note that Wednesday’s statement will be well received by Athens, which has long counted Egypt as a key partner in its decades-long maritime dispute with Ankara.
The broader confrontation between Greece and Turkey over Eastern Mediterranean maritime rights stretches back decades, rooted in conflicting interpretations of international maritime law. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) — the global framework governing ocean sovereignty — coastal states are permitted to claim up to 12 nautical miles of territorial sea, and up to 200 nautical miles of an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), where they hold exclusive rights to exploit offshore resources including fishing stocks and fossil fuel deposits.
Greece, which controls hundreds of islands across the Aegean Sea, has long avoided extending its territorial waters to the full 12 nautical limit permitted under UNCLOS after Turkey’s parliament issued a formal declaration in 1995 that any such move would be considered a casus belli, or a formal justification for war. On the issue of EEZs, Greece holds that all of its islands — regardless of size — are legally entitled to their own exclusive economic zones, a position Ankara has repeatedly rejected. Turkey is one of the only United Nations member states that has not ratified UNCLOS.
The 2020 agreement between Greece and Egypt recognizes Greek EEZ claims around large Greek islands including Rhodes and Crete, but intentionally excluded smaller islands like the 12-square-kilometer Kastellorizo, in a compromise designed to leave space for future negotiations between Cairo and Ankara. Greece has repeatedly offered to resolve the full EEZ and continental shelf dispute through arbitration at the International Court of Justice, but has stated it will not negotiate over the sovereign territory of its islands, including their territorial waters and airspace — an offer Turkey has repeatedly refused.
Egypt is far from the only regional power to condemn the newly ratified deal. Israel’s foreign ministry issued its own statement Wednesday accusing Turkey of actively working to destabilize the Eastern Mediterranean region. The ratification also comes just weeks after a high-profile, controversial meeting between Saddam Haftar and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the United Arab Emirates, a meeting that sent shockwaves across the region. The European Union also issued a formal condemnation, stating that the Turkish-Libya deal violates the terms of UNCLOS.
Responding to widespread international criticism on Wednesday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan defended the agreement as entirely legitimate under both international and domestic law. “There are countries reacting to this. We know why they are reacting. Some are doing so because they need to; some really do have strategic problems with this issue. However, this is an entirely legitimate deal, both from a legal and a statutory perspective. There is no need to argue this,” Fidan told reporters.