The Turkish Executive has raised with Egypt the signing of a bilateral maritime pact with the aim of reducing the territorial tension generated after the ratification of an agreement on jurisdictional waters between Ankara and the two rival administrations of Libya, an understanding harshly questioned by Greece, Cyprus and, in the last few hours, by Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
For Athens and Cairo, the pact signed between Turkey and Libya in the eastern Mediterranean has no validity whatsoever, considering that both States do not have contiguous or opposite coastlines. In addition, they interpret this move as an interference by Ankara in the fragile internal political balance of the North African country, a view rejected by the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has presented himself from the outset as a factor of stabilization.
In this context, the spokesperson for the Turkish Ministry of Defense, Rear Admiral Zeki Ataturk, indicated this Wednesday in a statement that it is "completely prepared to sign with Egypt an agreement on the delimitation of maritime jurisdictional zones" in accordance with "their mutual interests".
The Ministry of Defense of Turkey itself also maintains that it would be more advantageous for Egypt to close a direct agreement with Ankara than with Athens. According to what the spokesperson detailed in a press appearance, "They would gain more than 15,000 square kilometers more in relation to a potential agreement with Greece".
These statements come less than a day after the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece, George Gerapetritis, informed the General Assembly of the United Nations that Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have expressed their full support for the position of the Greek Government in the face of what all described as "an arbitrary agreement".