Greece's Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis said Athens has the tools to stop the Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum fr...

Greece's Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis said Athens has the tools to stop the Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum from being implemented in practice, even after Libya's eastern-based parliament approved the disputed 2019 agreement. The Greek government maintains the deal is legally invalid and contrary to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, but the concern in Athens is that Ankara and its Libyan partners could use the parliamentary stamp to push positions on the ground regardless of legal challenges. Gerapetritis pointed specifically to Greece's role in European decision-making, including oversight of Libya's financial arrangements and peacekeeping operations, as leverage. He also flagged Turkey's ambitions to deepen its relationship with the EU as a pressure point Athens intends to use. That pressure is already taking shape around the EU's SAFE defense programme. Turkey has sought access to the framework, but Greece is arguing Ankara's participation should be conditional on scrapping its casus belli, the 1995 Turkish parliamentary decision declaring that a Greek extension of territorial waters in the Aegean to 12 nautical miles would be a potential cause for war. Government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis confirmed that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis has already made clear the casus belli must be on the table in any discussion about third-country participation in SAFE. Athens is also building a diplomatic coalition against the deal. The EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas declared the memorandum "null and void" on behalf of all 27 member states, while Egypt called it legally without effect and Israel accused Turkey of acting as a destabilizing force in the Eastern Mediterranean. The memorandum, originally signed in 2019, establishes a claimed maritime boundary between Turkey and Libya that cuts across areas where Greece asserts rights based on its islands, including Crete. Athens argues the agreement cannot strip those islands of their maritime entitlements under international law. Greece currently holds the presidency of the UN Security Council, and a session on maritime security is scheduled in New York at the end of October, where the disputed...