Erdogan says Türkiye-Libya maritime deal protects shared rights and warns against excluding Ankara from Eastern Mediterranean

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that the Türkiye-Libya maritime agreement protects the two countries’ legitimate rights in the Eastern Mediterranean and rejected criticism of its approval by Libya’s eastern-based parliament.

Speaking after a Cabinet meeting at the Presidential Complex in Ankara, Erdogan said reactions to the agreement, particularly from the European Union, had “no legitimate basis.”

“We are not, so to speak, trying to score against anyone in the Eastern Mediterranean,” Erdogan said. “We are simply concerned with protecting our rights and interests with regard to our maritime jurisdiction areas.”

He said Türkiye favored resolving disputes peacefully through dialogue with all coastal states and called on the EU and other parties to adopt the same approach.

Erdogan also warned countries seeking to exclude Türkiye from the Eastern Mediterranean to respect what he called the “shared will” of Ankara and Libya.

The remarks followed the Libyan House of Representatives’ unanimous approval last week of the 2019 maritime delimitation memorandum with Türkiye. Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and the EU have opposed the agreement, arguing that it infringes the maritime rights of third countries and conflicts with international law.

Erdogan welcomed the Libyan vote as evidence that rival political forces could act together on matters of national interest and said Türkiye no longer wanted to see division in Libya or elsewhere in the Muslim world.

He also said Ankara was working to “extinguish the fire” across the wider region and oppose actors he accused of fueling conflicts through expansionist ambitions.