Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry is set to hold talks with his Greek’s counterpart Nikos Dendias, who will arrive in Cairo on Sunday in an official visit.
The duo is scheduled to discuss the latest agreement signed between Turkey and Libya’s government to demarcate the maritime boundaries between the two countries.
It is noteworthy that Egypt, Greece and Cyprus have strongly denounced the agreement, describing it as a serious breach of international law that disregards the lawful rights of other eastern Mediterranean countries.
Accordingly, Egypt dismissed the deal as “illegal”, and Greece said any such accord would be geographically absurd because it ignored the presence of the Greek island of Crete between the coasts of Turkey and Libya.
On Friday, Dendias called on the Libyan ambassador to Athens to present the deal with Turkey by December 5 or face expulsion.
The Turkey-Libya agreement announced this week added tension to an ongoing dispute with Egypt, Greece and Cyprus and over oil-and-gas drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean.
There are already sharp tensions between Turkey and Greece due to the Turkish drilling in the eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Cyprus, and the European Union has prepared sanctions against Turkey in response.
The new agreements were inked during Wednesday meeting between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Fayez al-Serraj, the head of the Tripoli-based government which Ankara is backing against a rival military force based in eastern Libya.
“This means protecting Turkey’s rights deriving from international law,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said of the memorandum of understanding on the “delimitation of maritime jurisdictions”.
He said that such accords could be agreed with other countries if differences could be overcome and that Ankara was in favor of “fair sharing” of resources, including off Cyprus.
Follow the latest news on Google News
