Greece has submitted a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres outlining the background of the illegal Turkish-Libyan memorandum.
The Permanent Representative of Greece to the UN, Maria Theofili, underlined in the letter that “Greece maintains all its rights under international law and calls on Libya and Turkey to respect the sovereign rights of Greece and to refrain from any move that may violate these rights and destabilizes peace and security in the region.”
The letter that was delivered to Guterres on November 17, noted that Greece rejects the new Turkish-Libyan memorandum in the field of hydrocarbons, which is described as “violating the sovereign rights of Greece, is a violation of international law and a deliberate escalation that undermines stability in the region.”
Theofili recalls Greece’s self-evident rights (ipso facto and ab initio) in the region, as they are based, among other things, on the agreement demarcating Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) with Egypt.
In the letter it is also underlined that the Tripoli government has no right to proceed with agreements
The new Turkish-Libyan memorandum is in complete contradiction with the 2020 Road Map for the resolution of the Libyan conflict, according to which the foreign policy of the Libyan state should be conducted “in a way that preserves the friendly and peaceful relations with regional and international partners and in accordance with the rules of good neighborliness and mutual interests,” the letter noted.
Based on this specific provision, but also the previous Turkish-Libyan memorandum, the permanent representative of Greece states in the letter that “an agreement on cooperation in the field of hydrocarbons clearly falls within the framework of agreements whose executive authority is excluded from the their completion.”