Mitsotakis: The Turkey-Libya memorandum defies geography itself

“The Turkey-Libya memorandum violates the principles of international law, is arbitrary and defies geography itself,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis stressed at the United Nations.

The Prime Minister was speaking during the high-level open debate held under Greece’s Presidency of the UN Security Council, entitled “Maintenance of International Peace and Security: Emerging Technologies and Maritime Security.”

Mitsotakis presented a map of the region to UN members, explaining that Turkey and Libya are attempting to delimit their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) as though the Greek islands between them did not exist.

“Look at the geography,” Mitsotakis urged those present. “Many of you have visited the Greek islands. Crete, my ancestral homeland, is one of the largest islands,” he continued, pointing out that Karpathos and Kasos are also home to thousands of residents.

“These are not uninhabited rocks in the middle of the sea. These are thriving communities, with centuries of history, dynamic economies, where hundreds of thousands of people live,” the Prime Minister added.

“Geography cannot be rewritten. And sovereign rights cannot be erased by drawing arbitrary lines on a map,” he stressed.

Mitsotakis highlighted the risks posed to stability in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond by challenges to the rules of international law.

“International law cannot be applied selectively, and the rules governing our seas cannot be rewritten to serve the ambitions of individual states,” he noted.

The map presented by Mitsotakis: “Islands have exclusive economic zones and continental shelves”

“Greece and Libya are natural maritime neighbours, with opposite coasts, and have the right, under international law, to delimit their maritime zones through an agreement,” Mitsotakis pointed out.

“By contrast, Turkey and Libya do not have opposite or adjacent coasts. Nevertheless, they have attempted to establish an artificial maritime boundary between them,” he added.

“This is absurd. There is no precedent for such a diagonal delimitation,” he remarked.

Mitsotakis also emphasised that “international law is absolutely clear: islands are entitled to maritime zones, including a continental shelf and an Exclusive Economic Zone, in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the relevant provisions of which reflect — I repeat — customary international law that is binding on all states.”

He made it clear that “no agreement between two states can deprive a third state of its sovereign rights. And no bilateral agreement can override international law.”

A Message to Turkey also concerning the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnection

The Prime Minister also made an indirect reference to the Greece-Cyprus electricity interconnection project (GSI), ahead of the anticipated issuance of a NAVTEX announcing the resumption of survey operations.

“The recent ratification of the Turkey-Libya memorandum by Libya’s House of Representatives cannot turn an illegal memorandum into a lawful agreement,” he initially stressed.

“Under no circumstances can this memorandum serve as a pretext for challenging lawful activities at sea or obstructing strategic connectivity projects that our region urgently needs,” he made clear.

“We cannot allow arbitrary maritime claims to become instruments for obstructing the economic development and prosperity of an entire region,” he added.