How to redeem our support for Ukraine
Turkey has been trying since 2019 to give substance to its “Blue Homeland” (Mavi vatan) concept and to consolidate it with a series of faits accomplis, knowing that neighboring countries and outside forces are very unlikely to support it.
But, taking advantage of the weakness and almost desperate position of successive Libyan governments, the civil war and their need to survive in an extremely unstable environment, Turkey moved decisively, offering economic, military and diplomatic support to help them prevail, against all odds. With the strategic advantage of international recognition and invoking the emergency situation, the Tripoli-based governments concluded a series of agreements, including the delimitation of maritime jurisdictions and, lately, a preliminary deal providing drilling permits to Turkish state oil firm TPAO on land and at sea. The agreements have been signed against the wishes of the Benghazi-based parliament, which has declared them null and void, without being able to halt their implementation.
Two agreements that directly infringe on our sovereign rights, both those defined by the Egyptian-Greek agreement on the delimitation of maritime exclusive economic zones and potential ones, remain on the table, therefore. Thus, Turkey can exercise its ‘rights’ deriving from the tenuous delimitation agreement of 2019 with the Tripoli government, presenting Greece with a major challenge.
With our own influence on Tripoli’s government being close to zero and that of Turkey proving enduring and especially effective, our main hope is that elections in Libya will bring a change of government. However, given the elections’ postponement and the situation right now, it is unknown when the polls will take place and under what circumstances. Greece has, of necessity, placed its eggs in one basket, that of the rival Benghazi faction, hoping that the next Libyan leader will come from there. But, even if that were to happen, it is doubtful whether a regular, legitimate government would want to nullify a very advantageous agreement, such as the one with Turkey, and replace it with another, this time with Greece.
Since we cannot appeal to the present Libyan government, we must mobilize those of our partners that have influence over Tripoli to apply pressure so that the government changes tack. This is a very difficult prospect, given the Tripoli government’s dependence on Turkey. However, given the unconditional support we have given to Ukraine in its war with Russia, now is the time to redeem it by asking the United States to go beyond verbal condemnation of the agreements. It is certain that Ankara will insist on their implementation; the US must do what it can to prevent that and also encourage the Libyans to take the case to the international court in The Hague, in agreement with Greece.
We must mobilize those of our partners that have influence on Tripoli to apply pressure so that the government changes tack on its deals with Turkey
If this looks improbable, I remind you that a few months ago, the Tripoli government had sounded Greece, through third parties, about taking recourse to The Hague court over the still non-delimited maritime areas. Greece had, rightly, rejected the overture; our main argument was that regional stability must be based on legal agreements and settling delimitation disputes through dialogue. Greece would be ready to accept an arbitration process in The Hague to resolve the legal problems arising from the overlapping areas covered by the Egypt-Greece and Libya-Turkey agreements. We must, in any case, prepare the ground for an agreement, ideally with a legitimate, duly elected government. We must take advantage of the fact that no regional power, and certainly not most of the West, wants to see Turkey impose its will on the region through illegal actions, especially with the looming war in Ukraine. Thus, we should ask the US, as a reward for our stance on Ukraine to extend its “red lines” vis-a-vis Turkey beyond the Aegean to the Libyan question; on this, we would have Egypt and Israel on our side.
Operationally, our options to prevent Turkish explorations are limited and will not deter Ankara, which will also invoke Libya’s invitation to explore. So, we must move decisively, first of all by activating the 2011 law that de facto set the limits of our continental shelf by including Crete (Turkey claims that islands cannot have a continental shelf). At the same time, we should begin explorations south of Crete to ascertain our oil and natural gas reserves. We should not think that Libya will refrain from submitting coordinates of its claimed maritime jurisdiction to the United Nations; absent recourse to The Hague, such actions are inevitable.
Although extending our territorial waters south of Crete to 12 nautical miles, from the current 6, appears risky, given Turkey’s threat that such a move would be cause for war, it is necessary, for two reasons: to prevent “explorations” such as those of the Oruc Reis research vessel off Kastellorizo, in the zone between 6 and 12 nautical miles off the coast and to increase the cost on Turkey through an escalating expansion of the coastal zone.
We are partly responsible for the present situation, because we did not develop a timely strategy of expanding our territorial waters, we did not activate our own hydrocarbons exploration program – we have not done a single exploratory drilling since 2011 – and we did not sign a delimitation agreement with Libya, even though we had been negotiating since 2005.
Constantinos Filis is the director of the Institute of International Affairs and an associate professor at the American College of Greece. “The Future of History,” edited by Professor Filis, is available from Papadopoulos Publications.
