The Greek-Turkish rivalry in the Mediterranean Sea stretched toward Libya in 2019 when Türkiye signed a maritime accord with the North African country.
Speaking on Sunday, a week after Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis visited Libya, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Greece and Libya agreed to advance discussions through technical committees for delimitation of the continental shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
One year after the Tripoli-based government’s deal with Ankara, Libya and Greece agreed to form a joint technical committee for maritime delimitation. Last year, tensions between Athens and Tripoli escalated when Greece launched an international tender for oil and gas exploration south of the island of Crete, in an area disputed with Libya.
Türkiye’s 2019 maritime boundary agreement with Libya includes provisions for Turkish hydrocarbon exploration within Libya’s territorial waters, but it is still not fully implemented. In 2022, the two countries signed a hydrocarbon memorandum of understanding, paving the way for Turkish companies to conduct seismic surveys and drilling operations.
The agreement took a new turn on June 25, 2025, when the Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) signed a memorandum of understanding with Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) for a 2D seismic survey in the Libyan waters. Under the memorandum, the TPAO will conduct surveys in four offshore blocks off the Libyan coast, over an area covering 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles). The data collected during the surveys will be processed within nine months.
