Fidan insists on legitimacy of maritime boundary agreement
LIBYA – Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said the maritime memorandum of understanding between Libya and Turkey, signed in 2019 to delimit maritime jurisdiction areas, is fully legitimate both legally and politically, arguing that it supports peace and stability in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency on Wednesday during a visit to Brussels, Fidan said the step was a diplomatic success for Turkish foreign policy under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and that the agreement had been drafted in line with that policy’s core principles and the rule of mutual benefit. “The trust of our Libyan brothers in Turkey, and the stability that will come to the Eastern Mediterranean, are both extremely important,” he added.
Ankara’s reading of the House vote
Asked about objections from some countries, Fidan said: “We know why these countries object. Some object because they feel they ought to, while others face real strategic problems related to this issue. But this is a fully legitimate agreement, legally and politically, and there is no need to debate that.”
Fidan said the agreement signed in 2019 was already in force under Turkey’s legal interpretation and the technical form in which it was concluded. “What happened in the Libyan House of Representatives was essentially an act of acceptance, not an act of ratification, in the view of our legal experts. We consider the agreement to have been in force since 2019,” he said.
Aims of Turkish diplomacy
Fidan again described the outcome as a success for Turkish diplomacy, adding: “I hope we will continue to achieve similar successes for our people. Our aim, in the Mediterranean as in all other regions, is stability, peace, security and happiness, and our diplomacy has no other goal.”
