Six nations stood together at the UN on Tuesday to declare the 2019 Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum dead on arrival, ev...

Six nations stood together at the UN on Tuesday to declare the 2019 Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum dead on arrival, even after Libya's House of Representatives unanimously ratified it on October 20. Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis delivered the joint statement on behalf of Greece, the EU, Cyprus, Egypt, Bahrain, and the UAE, calling the deal flatly illegal. Gerapetritis said the memorandum "remains invalid, contrary to international law and cannot constitute a legal basis for the delimitation of maritime zones nor produce legal effects for third states." The coalition argued Libya's ratification changes nothing about the deal's legal standing, and that the memorandum ignores the rights of coastal states, including the maritime entitlements of islands under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. EU ambassador to the UN Stavros Lambrinidis said the EU regrets the ratification and considers the agreement incompatible with international law of the sea. He pointed to European Council conclusions originally issued in December 2019 and formally reaffirmed as recently as June 2025, making clear this is not a new position. Gerapetritis also noted that Greece has held good-faith negotiations with Libya and remains willing to continue those talks. The joint statement also backed Libya's political reunification, calling a stable Libya "essential for peace and security throughout the Mediterranean." Erdogan fired back the same day after a cabinet meeting, welcoming the ratification and dismissing the international pushback entirely. He said the objections led by the EU "have no legal basis" and that Turkey "is not a country that pays attention to such statements nor does it shape its policy based on them." He framed Turkey's position as purely about protecting its rights in the maritime zones and warned those "trying to exclude Turkey from the Eastern Mediterranean" to respect what he called the common will of Turkey and Libya. The 2019 memorandum was widely criticized when it was first signed because it drew a maritime boundary that cuts directly through waters Greece and Cyprus claim under UNCLOS, effectively ignoring the island of Crete's geographic...