TRIPOLI, Libya — Libya’s Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah signed two deals with Turkey’s defense minister on Tuesday, building on a 2019 agreement that angered European nations. Dbeibah’s administration posted a statement saying the deals included “implementation protocols for the security agreement” signed that year by authorities in Tripoli, who at the time were fending off a blistering assault by eastern-based military chief Khalifa Haftar. The 2019 deal had seen Turkey claim large and potentially gas-rich areas of the eastern Mediterranean, angering Greece, France and the European Union. The latest deals come three weeks after Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu signed a deal in Tripoli allowing for oil and gas exploration in Libya’s Mediterranean waters. AdvertisementThat was also built on the 2019 deal, which demarcated the countries’ shared maritime borders but sparked anger in Greece and Cyprus.

Source: Libya Today October 25, 2022 21:15 UTC