Israel’s ambassador backs Greece: the Turkish-Libyan memorandum has “no legal standing”, and Israel strongly condemns it

Israel’s ambassador in Athens, Pninat Yanay, took a clear position in favour of Greece on the Turkish-Libyan memorandum. In a post on X on the evening of Saturday, October 31, the Israeli diplomat said her country “strongly condemns” the maritime-zones agreement between Turkey and Libya and considers it to have no legal standing.

Crete and Rhodes in the ambassador’s text

Yanay wrote that with the agreement the two countries tried to draw maritime borders by ignoring the maritime rights of Greek islands, among them Crete and Rhodes. She described the two islands as “two beautiful islands where so many Israelis love to spend their holidays”.

“Israel strongly condemns this agreement and considers that it has no legal standing, no force and no legitimacy,” she wrote. She added that her country “consistently respects the sovereignty and sovereign rights of Greece, as well as the principles of international law”, and concluded: “No agreement between two countries can undermine the legitimate rights of a third country.”

The Mitsotakis message she quoted

In her post the ambassador quoted a post by Kyriakos Mitsotakis from Thursday, October 29, in which the prime minister, in a video, wrote: “Geography cannot be rewritten. And sovereign rights cannot be erased by arbitrarily drawing lines on a map.” The same day, in an interview with Reuters, Mitsotakis had called the memorandum “blatantly illegal, null and void”.

The international front against the memorandum

The Israeli position adds to a series of reactions after the Libyan House of Representatives ratified the 2019 memorandum. On October 26, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and the European Union issued a joint statement at the UN, delivered in New York by Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis during the Greek presidency of the Security Council. The statement called the text “null and void”. The State Department had spoken of a “provocative and unconstructive” development.

Yanay’s post, written in English, was published shortly after 22:00 Greek time. With it, Israel’s ambassador takes a public position in favour of Greece on the Turkish-Libyan memorandum.