What is the Turkiye-Libya maritime deal, and why are the EU, Egypt opposed?
Eastern Libya’s parliament backs a sea border pact with Ankara, a shift that analysts say redraws Libya’s alliances.
Libya’s eastern-based parliament has backed a 2019 maritime deal with Turkiye already signed by the North African nation’s internationally recognised government based in Tripoli to delimit maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean Sea.
The vote on Tuesday came as Turkiye has been cultivating close ties in recent years with the eastern parliament, backed by renegade military commander Khalifa Haftar. Ankara had helped the Tripoli government, known as the Government of National Accord (GNA), push back an offensive in 2020 by Haftar’s self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) that aimed to capture Tripoli.
Egypt and the European Union have rejected the ratification of the maritime borders agreement, calling the deal “null and void”.
Sotirios Zartaloudis, an associate professor in comparative European politics at the University of Birmingham, told Al Jazeera that Athens and Nicosia see the deal as a Turkish attempt to block the “crucial Great Sea Interconnector”.