On November 27th, 2019, the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord (GNA) in Libya signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Turkey that redrew the maritime borders of the two countries across the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. The GNA was the internationally recognized interim government established in Tripoli after years of political fragmentation in Libya, where rival administrations have risen up since the 2011 revolution that ousted Muammar Gaddafi. Following elections in 2014, two competing power centers emerged with one in the west centered in Tripoli and another in the east centered in the city of Tobruk, where the House of Representatives (HoR) and its allies established a rival administration aligned with the Libyan National Army (LNA) under General Khalifa Haftar. This MoU, which defined a shared Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) between the two countries, effectively carved a corridor across waters claimed by many countries including Greece, Egypt and Cyprus. This set off a major international legal and diplomatic dispute. In the years since then, the agreement lacked a full ratification, especially from the HoR and the LNA. However, in August 2025, the HoR signaled that it may finally ratify the 2019 treaty with Turkey. That decision would effectively be the end of the final obstacle to affirm Turkey’s claim to a vast maritime zone off the Libyan coast and could pave the way for joint offshore gas exploration, bringing Turkey closer to a long-sought geopolitical goal of asserting maritime sovereignty and unlocking potentially lucrative gas and oil fields in the region.
This move has alarmed Greece and Egypt, both of which regard the deal as a violation of international maritime law. For Greece especially, the Turkey-Libya EEZ corridor effectively bypasses major Greek islands including Kastellorizo and Crete, and extends Turkey’s reach into the central Mediterranean. The deal also has profound implications on the unity and coherence of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the Mediterranean as the alliance has to attempt to uphold legal maritime rights of member states like Greece while maintaining partnerships with Turkey on critical issues such as immigration and regional security.
The MoU is very important to Turkey’s geostrategic goals. Turkey has long sought to expand their EEZ since much of their potential reach has been blocked by a plethora of Greek islands that lay near their coastline. This is part of the Turkish government’s Blue Homeland, or Mavi Vatan, doctrine, which is a cornerstone of the modern Turkish naval and geopolitical strategy. The Blue Homeland doctrine challenges what Turkey perceives as an unjust maritime status quo, shaped by international treaties and post-World War II arrangements that heavily favor Greece. The current Turkish regime, under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has fully integrated the Blue Homeland doctrine into its foreign policy and rejects the interpretation of maritime zones by Greece privileging islands over mainland coastlines on delimitation matters, arguing that delimitation should respect continental shelves and mainlands rather than granting islands extensive EEZs.
The Turkey-Libya MoU creates a corridor for Turkish offshore energy exploration, potentially giving Turkey an advantage in hydrocarbon licensing in areas that Greece and Cyprus have already targeted. Now that Libya’s eastern parliament might agree to ratify the treaty, this will clear the way for Turkey to explore these offshore sections in Libyan waters. While the earlier GNA was replaced in 2021 by the Government of National Unity (GNU), the agreement still recognizes the treaty it signed with Turkey, which has allowed Turkey to tactically shift toward the eastern Libyan HoR, thus hedging its earlier single-track Tripoli alignment. This means that, once ratified, the deal gives Turkey a two-fold payoff with one in energy in regards to offshore gas exploration, and the other in geopolitics with an expanded footprint in the Mediterranean flank. The fact that Turkey is pressing the eastern Libyan legislature to ratify confirms that Turkey views this as an important strategic move.
Meanwhile, for Libya, especially the eastern-based factions, the benefits of the deal are very multifaceted. It is first important to note that Libya still remains intensely fragmented, with competing power centers and an economy that is in dire need of investment. A potential partnership with Turkey, who is one of the most active external investors willing to commit to investing in Libya, offers vast advantages to reconstructing the country. If the MoU is ratified, Turkey is expected to invest in contracts in security, energy and infrastructure. However, while economics and reconstruction is important for Libya, the most important part of this deal is legitimacy and international recognition. If the eastern HoR ratifies the deal, it signals to the broader international community that it is a relevant and active actor in Libyan foreign policy. This image-boost will tremendously help its bargaining position in relation to Tripoli and other international partners. Thus, the shift eastwards is a strategic move by Libya’s eastern power-center to leverage Turkey for its own ends.
In response to the MoU, Greece and Egypt both signed their own maritime delimitation treaty in August of 2020. Greece and Egypt argued that Turkey’s map writes off the Greek island of Crete and ignores the role of islands in delimitation under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) framework. Obviously, at the heart of this controversy lies a long-standing geopolitical rivalry between Turkey and Greece. While these two countries are NATO allies on paper, their mutual distrust runs deep and is rooted in centuries of conflict, from the Ottoman Empire’s decline and the 1923 population exchanges, to the Cyprus crisis in the 1970s and the perennial disputes over airspace and maritime borders. Essentially, Greece views the deal as a direct assault on its sovereignty.
As both Greece and Turkey are very important NATO allies, this deal places NATO in a strained and uneasy position, as it will test their ability to maintain an already fragile unity while managing the competing priorities within their own members. Turkey’s geographical position within NATO is strategic because it creates a vital area for military zones of influence spanning the Black Sea, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Caucasus. NATO relies heavily on Turkey for its regional intelligence networks and as an important southern flank that faces both Russia and the Middle East. However, this dependency also gives Turkey a political leverage within the region, which it uses to push for its own strategic goals. Greece, meanwhile, expects its NATO allies, including the United States, to completely support the integrity of its own EEZ. This tension puts NATO in a situation where it has to attempt to mediate the conflict without alienating either side, all while avoiding open conflict between two of its members.
This treaty between Libya and Turkey might appear on the surface to be a normal, bilateral maritime treaty but it is in fact a major contention in the geopolitical landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean. By redefining their maritime boundaries, the Turkey-Libya MoU exacerbates a fragile balance of power in the region that will fuel tensions between Greece and Turkey as well as in NATO as they struggle to contain internal division while preserving cooperation. If Libya’s eastern parliament votes to ratify the MoU, it will mark a turning point as what was once a contested agreement will morph into a heated diplomatic dispute on who controls the Mediterranean seabeds as well as the rules of engagement in the Mediterranean basin.
Image source: Wikimedia Commons
