Reports reveal efforts to cancel the maritime agreement between Libya and Turkey

Nisreen Suleiman
Tripoli – “Al-Quds Al-Arabi”: The “Eurasia Review” website said that the Israeli occupation state has been seeking for nearly twenty years to normalize relations with Libya. The website added that the occupation aims to cancel the maritime border demarcation agreement between Libya and Turkey to expand its interests in the region, pointing out that normalizing diplomatic relations with Libya would be a major victory for Israel.

The website confirmed that Israel’s plan includes building undersea gas pipelines as part of the EastMed project to transport Israeli gas to Europe, but this planned route intersects with the Libyan-Turkish maritime region.
On November 27, 2019, the Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the head of the Presidential Council of the Government of National Accord at the time, Fayez al-Sarraj, signed two memorandums of understanding on security and military cooperation and defining areas of maritime jurisdiction to protect the rights of the two countries emanating from international law.

The Turkish Parliament approved the memorandum defining areas of maritime jurisdiction with Libya on December 5, 2019, and it was published two days later in the Official Gazette of the Turkish State. On the same day, the Presidential Council approved the two memorandums of understanding, and three days later, the memorandum related to defining areas of maritime jurisdiction entered into force.

In 2020, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres, ratified the agreement, based on Article 102 of the Charter of the international organization.

Despite the undeclared Israeli fear of the impact of the Libyan-Turkish agreement on its plans in the Mediterranean, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan explicitly announced in 2019 that “Israel will not be able to transport gas across the Mediterranean without Ankara’s approval.”

Erdogan said in an interview with TRT channel, “Ankara will not allow any unilateral steps in the Mediterranean, and Greece, Egypt, Israel and Cyprus will not be able to take any step without our approval, after we signed the memorandum of understanding with Libya.”

The Israeli National Security Research Center had called, in August 2019, to monitor the Turkish role in Libya, given that Ankara sees devoting its influence there as a means to confront Israeli-Egyptian-Greek-Cypriot cooperation in the field of gas extraction and energy economics, and that the transformations that The events that may occur in Libya could negatively affect Tel Aviv’s strategic interests.

The Libyan-Turkish agreement makes the completion of the Eastern Mediterranean Pipeline project, which was planning to transport Eastern Mediterranean gas to Israel, and also to Egypt, the island of Cyprus, and Greece, to Europe, without crossing Turkish maritime areas, impossible, as Turkey must agree to the transfer process.

Months ago, statements made by the Israeli Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, about the meeting that took place in Rome between him and the Libyan Foreign Minister, Najla Mangoush, and with the participation of the Italian Foreign Minister, Antonio Tajani, sparked angry reactions from the public in Libya.

This anger prompted the Prime Minister of Libya, Abdel Hamid Dabaiba, to take the decision to dismiss Mangoush from her position. On the other hand, the opposition and the Israeli media directed severe criticism at Cohen, who was quick to reveal the meeting without coordination with the Libyans in order to prove that his government had achieved achievements on the external level.

Analysts confirmed at the time that Israel was trying to exploit its relations with Libya in order to get rid of the water border demarcation agreement that the “National Accord” government, headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, had reached with Turkey. This is because this agreement gave Turkey an area of ​​water through which the gas pipeline that was to transport Israeli gas to Europe was scheduled to pass.

Eran Lerman, who previously served as Vice Chairman of the Israeli National Security Council and currently serves as Vice President of the Yerushalayim Institute for Strategy and Security, in a study he prepared a year and a half ago, concluded that Israel must employ its relations with the Libyan parties in order to Push towards getting rid of the economic water division agreement with Turkey, because this agreement makes the export of Israeli gas to Europe at the mercy of Ankara.

According to Lerman, Israel is also required to use its contacts with the Libyan parties to try to prevent Iran from gaining a foothold in Libya in a way that could threaten Tel Aviv’s interests. According to Lerman, both Haftar and Dabaiba are interested in relations with Israel based on the assumption that the road to Washington passes through Tel Aviv.