Despite the rapid developments unfolding behind its borders with Libya, Sudan, and the Gaza Strip, Egypt has continued to focus primarily on its maritime frontiers.
For that reason, the issue of maritime boundaries with Libya in the Mediterranean Sea figured prominently in the discussions held by Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar during his visit to Cairo, where he met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
Egypt, in an official statement, confirmed that “the meeting discussed developments in the delineation of the shared maritime boundary between the two countries” and that the two sides agreed on the importance of continued cooperation in a manner that serves the interests of both nations.
The visit comes after the Speaker of the Libyan Parliament, Aguila Saleh, met last week in Athens with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis, a meeting that addressed the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement.
Libyan political analyst Ibrahim Belqasem told Alhurra that Saleh’s visit to Greece came as part of “Athens’ attempt to sway eastern Libya and prevent the parliament from ratifying the two 2019 agreements between Libya and Turkey.” Belqasem stresses that the core of the dispute is over maritime boundary demarcation. He argues that “whoever draws the boundaries is the one who defines the shape of the new alliances in the Eastern Mediterranean.”
Belqasem explains that the shared maritime zone has become a field of competition among four countries: Egypt, Greece, Turkey, and Libya — noting that Libya is, geographically and legally, the strongest party, whereas Greece remains the weakest link. He adds that Libya has sought since 2002 to sign a boundary delineation agreement with Greece, but Athens refused, and then tried to take advantage of the post-2011 turmoil to try to impose its own vision of the maritime borders.
The Eastern Mediterranean Gas Forum notes that, according to global reports, there’s an estimated 300 trillion cubic feet of undiscovered deposits of natural gas within the Eastern Mediterranean region.
Background of the Maritime Agreements
In 2019, under the then Prime Minister of the National Accord government Fayez Al-Sarraj, Libya signed a memorandum of understanding with Turkey to delimit their maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean, granting both sides rights to designate an “exclusive economic zone.”
The memorandum redrew the map of competition over Mediterranean resources — especially gas and oil — and sparked objections from neighboring states, most notably Greece, Cyprus, and Egypt, on the grounds that it “ignores islands that belong to them and does not align with international law.”
This dispute persisted even after Egypt and Turkey fully restored diplomatic relations.
Bashir Abdel-Fattah, a writer and political researcher at Al-Ahram Center for Strategic Studies, told Alhurra that the maritime boundaries between opposite states, not adjacent ones, should have been delineated by Egypt, Turkey, and Libya collectively. He argues that the crisis emerged when the Sarraj government signed an agreement with Turkey, which is a state opposite to Libya and, at the same time, opposite to Egypt.
Abdel-Fattah explains that under the MoU with Libya, gave Turkey wider expanses that infringed upon the territorial waters of Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus — particularly because the agreement was not based on the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which Mediterranean states such as Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Israel use to demarcate maritime boundaries. “This,” he notes, “makes current Egyptian-Libyan discussions over maritime demarcation all the more important.”
Libya’s Maps
On May 27, 2025, Libya deposited with the United Nations maps defining the outer boundaries of its exclusive economic zone — a step that was published on the UN’s official website on July 1, 2025. Libya stated the move was in accordance with international law and its sovereign right to govern its coastal and continental waters.
Then, on June 25, the crisis was reignited when the Libyan National Oil Corporation signed a memorandum of understanding with the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO). The agreement assigns the Turkish company to conduct geological and geophysical mapping in four maritime zones.
Greece responded with an official note last September arguing that Libya’s position is based on the 2019 Turkish-Libyan memorandum, which Athens deems illegal. In the same month, Egypt sent an official note to the UN rejecting “all Libyan agreements and declarations.”
As tensions intensified, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in October that Greece seeks understandings with all its neighbors in accordance with the rule of law — especially the Law of the Sea. He added that Greece intends soon to invite all coastal states to a meeting to discuss shared concerns.
Legal Battles
Abdel-Fattah believes Egypt is weary of Turkey’s increasing influence in Libya and that such influence could harm Egyptian-Libyan maritime borders. Cairo insists on using the 1982 Convention as its legal reference, he says, noting that “Turkey rejects the Law of the Sea because it grants islands the rights of a states, and given the large number of Greek islands, Ankara believes Greece would acquire maritime rights that Turkey does not consider fair.”
Khaled al-Turjman , head of the Libyan National Action Group, agrees with this assessment in comments to Alhurra. He notes that the government of Abdulhamid Dbeibah is working to revive the agreement with Turkey regarding boundary delineation — a move that, in his view, compromises the rights of all Mediterranean littoral states, chiefly Egypt and Greece.
Belqasem, however, says Egypt reaps direct benefits from the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement and that demarcation itself is a complex process that raises fears of conflict over energy. Greece threatens to rally the EU in support of its claims. However, this backing, he explains, rarely goes beyond verbal statements. He adds that Athens itself is unwilling to grant any party, whether Egypt, Turkey, or Libya, their full maritime rights.
Belqasem says Greece does not want to go to the International Court of Justice. Instead, it relies on political pressure tools and seeks to rally regional support for its vision.
Meanwhile, with Egypt’s blessing, relations between eastern Libya and Turkey are getting warmer. This was evident when Saddam, the son of Khalifa Haftar, visited Ankara and was given promises of military assistance should the agreement be ratified.
Belqasem concludes that the Libyan Parliament’s ratification of the agreement would force Greece to confront a new reality and that a sustainable solution lies in a quadrilateral agreement among the concerned states.
In this complex environment of competing positions among the parties involved, the Eastern Mediterranean maritime-boundary issue has evolved from a purely technical and legal dispute to a centerpiece of a geopolitical struggle in which state calculations, energy interests, and regional power balances intersect. Amid competing strategic priorities, economic interests, and sovereignty concerns, the ultimate resolution depends on an agreement that secures Mediterranean stability and guarantees the right of all littoral states to exploit their resources.
