Athens rejects Benghazi’s vote: the Turkish–Libyan memorandum is “spurious, null and void”, says the Greek Foreign Ministry

Greece has rejected the decision of Libya’s House of Representatives to approve the 2019 Turkish–Libyan memorandum on maritime zones, describing it as “spurious”, according to a statement of the Greek Foreign Ministry issued on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 20 and also posted on the ministry’s official X account. Athens’ reaction came hours after the parliament in Benghazi unanimously approved the memorandum and cancelled the 2020 decisions with which it had rejected it.

“This decision does not change the illegal, null and void character of the memorandum, which runs counter to the Law of the Sea and infringes the sovereign rights of the states of the region,” the ministry said.

“Geography does not change with parliamentary decisions”

The ministry restated the central legal argument Athens has made since 2019: “Geography and the international Law of the Sea are not changed by unilateral, legally unfounded parliamentary decisions. Turkey and Libya do not have opposite or adjacent coasts that provide a lawful basis for the attempted delimitation of maritime zones.” It added that the memorandum “disregards the Greek islands and their rights to maritime zones under UNCLOS and customary international law”, with Crete lying between the coasts of the two countries.

The statement recalls that Greece has already signed maritime delimitation agreements with Egypt and Italy “in accordance with the international Law of the Sea”, which, it notes, shows “its respect for international law and for the sovereign rights of neighbouring states”. “We call on the Libyan side to refrain from any action that runs counter to international law and undermines stability in the Eastern Mediterranean,” it says.

The text ends with a line that leaves the next steps open: “Greece has already informed its partners and allies and will take every appropriate action to safeguard its sovereign rights.” The ministry did not say which actions are under consideration. For the legal background, see our explainer on UNCLOS and the Aegean dispute.

After the removal of Saleh

The approval came two weeks after Aguila Saleh was removed as speaker of the House, a development that cleared the way for ratification. Five days earlier, Athens and Cairo had held in Athens the third round of political consultations on Libya, with reference to UNCLOS. Ankara celebrated the decision, with Erdogan’s chief foreign policy adviser Çağrı Erhan writing on X “Congratulations to our Blue Homeland”. The Benghazi vote means that, for the first time, both rival centres of power in Libya now back the memorandum, which cuts across the sea area south of Crete. Greek commentators are already calling for national measures and EU sanctions.