Libya’s maritime deal with Türkiye ruffles feathers in Egypt
Eastern Libya's parliament has ratified a maritime boundary deal with Türkiye, shifting regional alliances and complicating geopolitical relations in the Eastern Mediterranean. The move impacts natural gas resource claims and creates friction with Egypt and other regional powers.
Why it matters
The realignment of Libyan factions with Turkish interests significantly alters the balance of power and resource control in the Mediterranean, affecting international energy and security policies.
Athens may feel betrayed, and Tel Aviv threatened, but Ankara must be celebrating a major triumph—one that paves the way for its expanded influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. On 20 October, eastern Libya’s parliament ratified a maritime boundary delimitation deal that Türkiye and authorities in western Libya had already agreed to in 2019. Now all of Libya approves.
The eastern ratification offers an insight into the political ambitions of Saddam Haftar, the son of Libya’s elderly leader, Khalifa Haftar. Saddam is the deputy commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA), which controls eastern Libya, and has been busy cultivating ties with the Greeks, Turks, Israelis, Americans, and Egyptians, to name but a few, flying to Cairo, New Alamein (Egypt’s new ‘summer capital’), Athens, and even Abu Dhabi last month, where he reportedly met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, himself there on an unannounced visit.
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