Libya’s eastern-based House of Representatives voted unanimously on Tuesday to ratify a 2019 maritime memorandum with Türkiye, overturning its own 2020 decisions to reject the agreement and sever political relations with Ankara. The vote in Benghazi revives one of the most contested boundary lines in the eastern Mediterranean and drew immediate pushback from Greece, the European Union, Israel and Egypt, each of which said the pact cannot stand as written.
What lawmakers approved
Spokesperson Abdullah Bliheg said the chamber approved the memorandum of understanding signed in Istanbul on 27 November 2019 by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and Mohamed Taher Siala, foreign minister of Libya’s then-Government of National Accord. The text, registered with the United Nations in December 2019, delimits continental shelf and exclusive economic zone boundaries between Libya and Türkiye using fixed geographic coordinates in the agreement and its annexes.
Lawmakers also repealed Resolution No. 1 of 2020, which had rejected ratification of maritime and security memorandums between Tripoli and Ankara, and Resolution No. 6 of 2020, which called for severing political relations with Türkiye. Those resolutions were adopted in January 2020 when eastern authorities aligned with commander Khalifa Haftar opposed Tripoli’s deepening security and energy cooperation with Ankara.
Regional backlash
Greece’s foreign ministry said the deal “remains illegal, null and void,” contravenes the law of the sea and infringes sovereign rights in the region. Athens urged Libya to avoid steps that undermine stability in the eastern Mediterranean. The European Union said in a 21 October statement that it “strongly regrets” the ratification and reiterated its December 2019 position that the memorandum infringes third states’ rights and “cannot produce any legal consequences for third States.”
Israel’s foreign ministry condemned the vote on Wednesday, saying the agreement infringes allies’ sovereign rights and accusing Türkiye of working to destabilize the basin. Egypt’s foreign ministry rejected the ratification as well, saying it would have no legal impact on Cairo’s maritime claims. Türkiye’s foreign ministry welcomed the Libyan vote and said the pact respects both countries’ rights under international law.
Why the timing matters
The dispute is not new. Greece, Cyprus and Egypt have long argued that the 2019 line ignores the maritime entitlements of islands and coastal states between Libya and Türkiye, with implications for gas exploration and pipeline routes. What changed this week is political alignment in eastern Libya: analysts tied the reversal to warmer Benghazi-Ankara ties and to leadership shifts in the House of Representatives after speaker Aguila Saleh, seen as closer to Egypt, was replaced earlier in October.
Libyan lawmaker Tarek al-Jeroushi told Reuters the agreement would strengthen Libya as a political, military and economic partner to major powers, adding that “some countries may be upset” but national interest came first. Saddam Haftar, deputy to his father Khalifa, welcomed parliament’s approval and called the deal a tool to protect Libya’s economic rights in the Mediterranean. The parliamentary statement did not spell out implementation steps or how the ratification interacts with competing institutions in western Libya.
What comes next
Diplomatic friction is likely to intensify before any joint exploration moves. Greece and the EU are pressing Libya to avoid actions that harden competing EEZ maps, while Türkiye is expected to treat the vote as formal eastern backing for a line it has defended since 2019. Energy companies and NATO allies will watch whether the ratification translates into new licensing activity or remains a symbolic reversal of the 2020 break with Ankara. For Washington and Brussels, the vote is another test of whether Libya’s split institutions can be steered toward a single foreign policy on maritime borders—or whether the Mediterranean map will stay a patchwork of rival claims.