Why Libya’s embrace of Turkey’s maritime deal reshapes the Mediterranean alignment - analysis

Libya's eastern parliament approved a maritime boundary deal with Turkey on Tuesday, seemingly bolstering Turkey’s claims to a swath of the eastern Mediterranean.

The deal dates to 2019, when Turkey sought to exploit Libya’s divisions by claiming a maritime boundary that would ostensibly link Libya and Turkey via a maritime border off the coast of Crete. This clearly overlaps with Greek claims.

However, it is at the heart of Ankara’s Mavi Vatan, or Blue Homeland, policy, which asserts that Turkey has extensive claims to a maritime zone that effectively negates Greece's claims to waterways between Greek islands.

Turkey won't take over these waters anytime soon. It also isn’t likely to do any energy exploration off the coast of Crete. Libya is a divided and poor country. Therefore, the deal is more about symbolism. Turkey gets support from Libya, a country that can’t exercise its claims anyway.

This increases tensions with Greece. However, Ankara may think it can get some concessions in the future. Either way, any energy company that wants to explore in a block of ocean off the coast of Greek islands that overlap with Ankara’s claims may be wary of doing so.

Increased tensions in eastern Mediterranean

Thus, by asserting claims, Turkey can cause trouble without having to do much more.

When the deal took place in 2019, the Libyan government in Tripoli, which was called the Government of National Accord, was suffering setbacks on the battlefield against the the Eastern/Tobruk-based administration aligned with General Khalifa Haftar's Libyan National Army (LNA).

After the deal, Turkey rushed support to Tripoli. Forces arrived, along with Turkish drones. Haftar’s army was defeated at Watiya airbase in 2010.

“It has been fighting for more than a year to capture Tripoli, seat of the Government of National Accord (GNA), which is recognized by the United Nations and has moved onto the front foot in the war since January with military help from Turkey,” France24 noted at the time.

“The LNA, under Khalifa Haftar, is supported by the United Arab Emirates, Russia and Egypt.”

Since 2020, Libya’s frontlines have been mostly a stalemate. The Trump administration has been hoping for a deal in Libya. Le Monde noted in September that “after 15 years of keeping a low profile on Libya, Washington now wants to reconcile the rival authorities in the country's east and west by brokering a power-sharing agreement negotiated among a handful of local warlords.

"Far from calming the nation, this initiative has triggered a frantic reshuffling of power dynamics and exposed the fragility of alliances on both sides.”

The 2019 Libya deal with Turkey was designed to give Ankara a reason to back Tripoli. It succeeded: Ankara gained a foothold in Libya, and the Libyan government was able to push back Haftar’s forces.

However, why has the deal been revived now? Having the eastern Libyan parliament embrace the deal would appear to mean that Libya is now unified on this policy. The decision has angered several other countries.

Egypt has condemned the decision. Greece and Israel have also condemned it. “Israel strongly condemns the decision of the Libyan House of Representatives to ratify the Maritime Jurisdiction Memorandum between Turkey and Libya.  This agreement infringes upon the sovereign rights of our close allies in the region. Regretfully, once again we see Turkey working to destabilize the east Mediterranean region.”

The Libya Observer notes that “the European Union, Greece, Egypt and Israel have rejected the Libyan House of Representatives’ ratification of the 2019 maritime agreement with Turkey, arguing that the deal violates international law and infringes on the sovereign rights of other countries in the eastern Mediterranean.”

Why did Libya decide now is a good time to make the decision?

With so many condemnations pouring in, why would Libya decide now is a good time to discuss this issue?

On the one hand, the new focus on the maritime claims could open up a new front in Turkey-Israel tensions. Turkey and Israel already have tensions over Syria and potentially over Somalia after Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. Turkey has signed on to a new pact with Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

Meanwhile, it also has a deal with Indonesia, Qatar and Pakistan to develop defense industrial production.

However, the tensions with Egypt and Libya over the deal also seem to create a challenge. Turkey and Egypt have been patching up their relations over the last several years. This follows a period when the countries were at odds over the 2013 toppling of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

In fact, when the deal was first announced in Libya in 2019, it appeared that Ankara and Cairo were involved in a proxy war in Libya. These days, Egypt is very close to Saudi Arabia and is considering backing it against the Houthis. Turkey and Riyadh are also allies. How could the deal create tensions between Cairo and Ankara, and thus create challenges for Riyadh?

There are other issues at stake. Israel’s Prime Minister recently laid out a National Security Doctrine. In his October 18 speech, he showed a map of the region. The map appeared similar to one created by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung, which is associated with the Social Democratic Party of Germany.

The map shows Israel aligned with the UAE, a member of the Abraham Accords. The map has raised eyebrows because of the alliances it appears to sketch out for Israel.

“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled a map of the wider Middle East showing his country and the UAE aligned with a paramilitary in Sudan, accused of committing genocide, and separatists in Libya, Yemen and Somaliland,” Middle East Eye noted. Middle East Eye is hostile to Israel and usually sympathetic to Turkey and Qatar. Nevertheless, it makes a point about Libya that is worth considering.

If Israel was close to the eastern Libyan government in the past, then why would the eastern Libyans agree to the Turkish maritime deal? Has this also angered their friends in Cairo? What is afoot? Is it just strange timing?

It will take time to see what happens with this latest maritime controversy. It could fade, just as the 2019 deal did. That deal led to some increased tensions in the eastern Mediterranean. However, it eventually seemed to be put on ice. Israel has increased its naval investment.

It acquired new Sa’ar 6 corvettes and submarines. Israel is now building five new Reshef-class vessels designed to replace the Sa’ar 4.5 ships. Israel and Greece are also growing closer. Greece is procuring several Israeli air defense systems as part of the billion-dollar Achilles Shield program.

Meanwhile, Morocco is also seeking to acquire Israeli defense systems. This clearly shows that Israel has greater influence in the Mediterranean.

What comes next with the Libyans. The US might get the Libyans to unite. The US has also pushed for a ceasefire in Sudan. Other issues remain in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia and Eritrea remain tense, and rebel groups operate in Ethiopia.

With so many new initiatives in the region, such as the Saudi-Turkey-Pakistan deal and the new Qatar-Indonesia-Turkey-Pakistan deal, the Turkish-Libya maritime deal is merely one more stepping stone for countries seeking to invest in a new regional order.

This comes amid concerns about the US role in the region in the future. With reports that the US and Israel are preparing a new round of strikes on Iran and the US potentially withdrawing some diplomatic staff and moving around military assets, many things are in motion.

For instance, NBC noted that the “US military has quietly been scaling back its troop presence at bases across the Middle East in recent days.” This appears to affect troops stationed in Jordan, Qatar, and Kuwait.

What happens next in the eastern Mediterranean is anyone’s guess. The last decade has shown that despite many agreements, and even talk of new energy corridors and pipelines, new initiatives take time to take shape.

As long as Israel and Turkey have tensions, and Greece, Libya, Egypt, Turkey, and Cyprus do not agree, there can’t be a lot of energy development or new pipelines in these areas where conflicting, overlapping claims take place.

No one will invest in expensive pipelines if they could end up being attacked. The Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz and also the Iranian-backed militias attacking the East-West pipeline in Saudi Arabia already show how vulnerable energy trade routes are to cheap drones.