Turkey insists on undermining the Libya-Greece relationship

November 1, 2022, the head of the National Oil Company of Libya (NOC), Farhat Bengdara told CNBC Arabiya that two new natural gas pipelines are being considered; one will be directed to Greece and the other to the Egyptian city of Damietta .

Pipelines which, as he mentioned, were considered to operate in parallel with the already existing pipeline to Italy.

He had also spoken about the scenario of Libya asking to join the Eastern Mediterranean Natural Gas Forum (EMGF), in which the countries of the region apart from Turkey participate, with Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Israel, Italy, Jordan, Palestine being the founding members.

Bengtara was quickly “disowned” by the competent Libyan ministry, noting that such a plan would not be sustainable.

The Turkish-Libyan memorandum of 2022

A month before, the new Turkey-Libya cooperation memorandum on hydrocarbons was signed, which is essentially based on the Turkish-Libyan memorandum on the delimitation of maritime zones of 2019.

Turkey‘s new move, which was seen as another step in the transformation of Libya into a protectorate of Ankara, provoked the strong reaction of Athens – Cairo, with Egypt proceeding to unilaterally demarcate its western maritime borders, achieving a significant blow to the Turkish-Libyan memorandum of 2019, on the Libyan side.

Turkey did not appear to react, towards Egypt. However, it proceeded to send a joint letter with Libya to the UN against Greece, followed by a letter of the Permanent Representative of Athens to the UN, Maria Theofilis, against the Turkish-Libyan memorandums.

Turkey is trying to mobilize Libya

And while Turkey appeared to be trying to mobilize Libya to escalate its rhetoric towards Athens, according to Libya Review, the National Oil Company of Libya in a letter calls on the government to formally protest to the relevant agencies and Greece against the surveys of Athens in “disputed waters between the two countries”.

The letter, according to the website, was sent to the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity, Abdul Hamid Dbeiba, while it also mentions NOC’s intentions to send a similar protest to ExxonMobil, asking it to stop its exploration in “Libyan waters”.

It also proposes the establishment of a permanent technical committee headed by the NOC and a member of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which should “monitor and control the illegitemacy of research activities in the maritime areas of the countries surrounding Libya.”

“The company will reprocess the seismic data related to the marine areas, especially the areas adjacent to point 16 of the Greek-Italian agreement,” the NOC said in its letter.

Letter with Turkish influence

The publication does not mention the name of the head of the NOC, who had spoken about the possibility of a pipeline while for some the Turkish influence is clear.

It is also worth noting that Turkey has admitted several times that in the area south and west of Crete it has no right to intervene, tossing the “ball” of any reaction in Libya’s court.

At the same time, Athens is monitoring the developments and measuring its reactions, trying to get ahead of the developments this time…