The agreement could be voted on and ratified in an official meeting this week," the brief report in "The Libya Observer" continues.
Libya and Turkey signed a memorandum of understanding on offshore oil and gas exploration in Libyan waters just last Wednesday. The agreement comes at a time when a dispute over maritime rights has erupted between Libya and Greece , in addition to Turkey.
The Libyan House of Representatives is moving toward unanimous ratification of the 2009 #Libya-#Turkey Maritime Agreement, a lawmaker speaking on the condition of anonymity reveals.
The deal could be passed and voted on during a formal session this week, he adds. pic.twitter.com/RckBTqH8TE— The Libya Observer (@Lyobserver) June 29, 2025
Like Turkey, Libya is not a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). This means that Libya and Turkey are not legally bound by the provisions of UNCLOS, but have merely submitted to the United Nations Geneva Conventions on the Law of the Sea of 1958.
The 2019 maritime agreement between Turkey and Libya, which aims to establish maritime borders, is contested within the EU. Critics, including Greece and Cyprus , argue that it violates UNCLOS by ignoring their maritime rights, while Turkey claims to protect its sovereign rights based on the principles of the continental shelf under the Geneva Convention on the Law of the Sea. The legal validity of either agreement therefore remains disputed, and as of June 2025, no negotiations have reached a mutually agreed solution.
Diplomatic tensions in the Eastern Mediterranean have therefore increased again. Libya and Turkey are on one side, and the European Union , with Cyprus and Greece, on the other. At the heart of the dispute is the 2019 agreement signed between Tripoli and Ankara , which focuses on sovereignty and rights to mineral exploration. Recent statements and actions have reignited this complex and sensitive issue, even within the EU.
Both the Libyan parliament and the government in Ankara recently strongly rejected the European Council's conclusions of June 26, 2025, on the Libyan-Turkish maritime agreement. Both sides emphasized that the legitimacy of the international agreements signed by Libya and Turkey lies exclusively within the competence of their respective constitutional bodies and condemned any external attempts to interfere in their internal affairs or bilateral relations.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Öncü Keçeli, in his first reaction to the EU Council conclusions published on Friday, said that the results of the summit of EU heads of state and government showed that Greece and the Greek island of Cyprus continue to strive to "enforce their maximum demands."
The deal is a “completely legitimate agreement” under international law, wrote Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Öncü Keçeli on X.
“In this context, instead of supporting legally invalid demands, the EU should call on all its members to respect international law,” he said.