Greece seeks eastern Libyan investment to stave off Turkey deal

Reconstruction and Development Fund head Belqasim Haftar met with Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in Athens. These were the first direct talks between the Haftar family and the Greek government since Gerapetritis visited Benghazi in July. 

During the meeting, Mitsotakis and Belqasim Haftar reportedly discussed increasing economic and trade ties, including the potential sending of a Greek trade mission to Benghazi later this year. Mitsotakis also reiterated his opposition to recent Turkish claims in the eastern Mediterranean. 

Turkish outreach

The Haftar family and eastern Libya now find themselves at the center of a decades-long dispute between Greece and Turkey over influence in the eastern Mediterranean. Both NATO allies have spent years jostling for control of the islands and unexplored oil resources that lie between, and to the south of, both nations.

Turkey, which had long backed the rival Government of National Unity (GNU) in Tripoli, has spent the past two years gradually increasing its relations with the Haftar-controlled Libyan National Army (LNA) and its allied political factions: the House of Representatives (HoR) and the Government of National Stability (GNS).

This increased diplomatic outreach has also come with expanded Turkish military and economic investment and has helped push the HoR toward the possibility of ratifying the 2019 Turkish Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Tripoli, which would grant Turkey exclusive rights to explore for oil off Libya’s claimed territorial waters.

This set off alarm bells within the Greek government, which stated that the proposed Turkish rights would overlap with Greece’s own claimed territorial waters.

Tug-of-War

The Greek government under Prime Minister Mitsotakis initially attempted to resolve the situation diplomatically, dispatching Foreign Minister Gerapetritis to Libya to address the issue. During his trip, the Greek foreign minister failed to make any progress—likely attempting to convince the Haftar faction to change its position without offering anything substantial in return.