Dendias: Turkey blackmailed Libya
The Libyan-Turkish memorandum delineating common maritime boundaries in the Mediterranean is the product of Turkish blackmail to the embattled Libyan government and is totally devoid of substance, Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said Sunday.
“The Turkish move had been anticipated since July and a series of actions had been undertaken to prevent it,” Dendias told TV station Ant1. “Despite that, the Tripoli government, blackmailed by Turkey, obviously because of the advances made by General Haftar('s army) in recent days, signed the text,” he added.
Field Marshal Khalifa Belqasim Haftar is the leader of the Libyan National Army, which is loyal to the so-called Tobruk government that controls the eastern part of Libya and is engaged in a civil war against the UN-recognized government of Libya based in Tripoli, the country's capital in the western part. Haftar's Army also has the support of the Libya House of Representatives, which has condemned the Libyan-Turkish memorandum.
“Our country will prepared a note that will be submitted to the United Nations and will take all those measures in the framework of international law and the law of the seas that will demonstrate the invalidity (of the memorandum),” Dendias said.
The Greek Foreign Minister also said that Greece and Egypt are already engaged in talks with a “tight timetable” to delineate their own Exclusive Economic Zones.
[ANA-MPA]
