ATHENS GRUMBLES FOR NOT BEING INVITED TO LIBYA PEACE TALKS IN BERLIN
THE GREEK government has complained that it is taken aback that no representative of Athens was invited to Berlin for the Libya conference on Sunday.
“We don’t understand why Greece is not part of this process,” Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias told Greek state television ERT on a visit to Morocco Wednesday evening.
“We wish (the organizers) the best,” Dendias added. Athens had requested to attend the conference in the past few days.
Libya’s internationally recognized prime minister, Fayez al-Serraj, and the eastern Libya-based putschist general Khalifa Haftar have been invited, alongside representatives from Turkey, Britain, France, China, the United Arab Emirates and top officials from several African and Arab states.
The reason for Greek interest in the Libya conference is an agreement that Ankara and Tripoli signed in which Turkey and Libya divided their zones of influence and interest in the Mediterranean.
Turkey and Libya signed a deal late November after a meeting between President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the head of the Presidential Council of Libya’s U.N.-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), al-Sarraj, in Istanbul. The deal enabled Turkey to secure its rights in the Mediterranean while preventing any fait accompli by other regional states.
However, Greece, one of the main regional actors, did not welcome the deal and regarded it as a violation of its rights, though international law proves otherwise.
According to Greece, the sea border agreement violates international maritime law: Athens is of the opinion that Turkey and Libya have violated the Greek continental shelf south of the island of Crete in their deal. On the other hand, Turkey defends the argument that Crete has no continental shelf other than territorial waters.
Rich natural gas reserves are suspected south of the Greek island. Greece and Turkey are both NATO members.
Cyprus, Israel and Egypt also consider their interests violated by the Turkish-Libyan agreement.