France has “taken note” Friday of the hydrocarbon exploration agreement in Libyan waters signed with Turkey, deeming it “not in accordance with the international law of the sea”.
The position of Paris on this “memorandum of understanding (…) remains unchanged,” said the French Foreign Ministry in a statement. “It infringes on the sovereign rights of EU Member States, is not in conformity with the international law of the sea and cannot have legal consequences for third States.
The memorandum, signed Monday during the visit to Tripoli of a high-level Turkish delegation, came three years after the two sides signed a controversial maritime delimitation agreement in 2019.
On the strength of this agreement, Turkey has asserted rights over large areas in the eastern Mediterranean, much to the displeasure of Greece and the EU.
Cyprus, Greece and Egypt believe that the 2019 agreement violates their economic rights in this sector, where the discovery in recent years of vast gas deposits has whetted the appetite of countries in the region.
In return for this agreement, Turkey had helped the government in Tripoli to repel in June 2020 the offensive led by the forces of Marshal Khalifa Haftar, strongman of the east, to take the capital.
Ankara had sent military advisers and drones to Libya, which helped inflict a series of defeats at the gates of Tripoli on the forces of Marshal Haftar, supported by Russia and Ankara’s regional rivals, including the United Arab Emirates and Egypt.
Athens has already said that the government in Tripoli lacks the “legitimacy” to seal such an agreement. The eastern camp, close to Egypt, also rejected it.
Since March, two governments supported by two rival camps in western and eastern Libya have been fighting for power. The country fell into chaos after the uprising that led to the fall of the regime of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
