CAIRO (AP) — Greece’s main diplomat arrived Sunday in Cairo for talks with Egyptian officials on challenges like controversial maritime and gas deals that Turkey signed with one of Libya’s rival administrations, officers said.
International Minister Nikos Dendias landed in Cairo’s airport in advance of heading for talks with his Egyptian counterpart, Sameh Shukry, according to Egypt’s Foreign Ministry. The ministry reported the two ministers would keep a news convention later on.
Egypt and Greece have strengthened ties in the latest decades, such as cooperation in fields ranging from power to combating terrorism. The two nations, together with Cyprus, have signed maritime border agreements. Ahmed Abu Zeid, the ministry’s spokesman, described Egyptian-Greek ties as “a extended standing strategic partnership and historic friendship.”
Dendias wrote on Twitter in advance of his trip that moreover Greece-Egypt ties, the talks would concentrate on developments in the Aegean Sea, Libya and the Center East.
He was probable referring to tensions with Turkey about the alleged deployment of dozens of U.S.-produced armored autos by Greece to the Aegean islands of Samos and Lesbos. He also pointed to memorandums of knowing in between Turkey and the federal government of Abdul Hamid Dbeibah, a person of Libya’s two competing governments.
The specials, signed past week in the Libyan funds of Tripoli, include things like the joint exploration of hydrocarbon reserves in Libya’s offshore waters and countrywide territory. Dendias slammed the bargains as illegal, saying they infringed on Greek waters. Egypt’s Overseas Ministry also argued that Dbeibah’s authorities has “no authority to conclude any intercontinental agreements nor memorandums of knowing,” provided that its mandate expired.
Libya has been mired in chaos since a NATO-backed rebellion toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. The region has because been dominated by rival governments for most of the past ten years. There are now two administrations claiming legitimacy: Dbeibah’s in Tripoli and a further parliament-appointed govt chaired by Key Minister Fathi Bashagha.
Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya expert with the Royal United Companies Institute, a protection and security believe tank, explained Turkey’s deals with Dbeibah’s federal government, which have “little authorized benefit,” were intended to provoke Greece.
They were being “part of the politics of hyper-nationalistic assertiveness that a weak, unpopular (President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan seeks to cultivate as he goes into the June 2023 elections,” he reported.
Erdogan’s authorities exploited Dbeibah’s weakened position following Turkey helped him defend his placement in Tripoli when Bashagha attempted in August to install his governing administration in the capital, Harchaoui explained. Turkey has troops and allied Syrian mercenaries on the floor in the Libyan funds.
“Dbeibah was in no position to say ‘No’ to the (memorandums of knowing). Turkey has performed a decisive role in maintaining him in Tripoli thus significantly, so he has no preference but to say ‘Yes’,” he claimed in created comments.
The Libyan primary minister defended the offers, declaring they would assistance Libya go after oil and gas exploration “in our territorial waters with the assistance of neighboring countries.”
Turkey’s agreements with Dbeibah’s governing administration came three decades just after another controversial arrangement amongst Ankara and a former Tripoli federal government. That 2019 offer granted Turkey access to a contested economic zone in the gasoline-prosperous eastern Mediterranean Sea location, fueling Turkey’s pre-existing tensions with Greece, Cyprus and Egypt in excess of oil and gasoline drilling legal rights in the location.
Samy Magdy, The Associated Press
