Foreign Ministry spokesman Nader Zaki said on Saturday, 24 October, that Egypt is working with international law experts to compile a comprehensive legal dossier on the Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum.
Speaking on the programme Al-Hekaya, hosted by Amr Adib on MBC Masr, Zaki stated that Egypt’s response is not limited to either accepting the situation or escalating it.
He said Cairo has kept in direct contact with both the Turkish and Libyan sides over the previous 24 hours.
The ministry maintains that the 2019 memorandum, which Libya’s eastern-based parliament ratified on 20 October, infringes on Egypt’s exclusive economic zone and continental shelf.
Zaki said Egypt’s contacts also extend to Cyprus, Greece, the European Union and the wider international community, because the dispute affects other Mediterranean states.
He explained that Egypt has held since 2019 that the memorandum is null and carries no legal effect, and he noted that Greece, Cyprus and the European Union take the same position.
According to Zaki, affected states can take legal action and demand a halt to drilling and exploration work, including by seeking urgent rulings that would stop such activity until the dispute is settled.
The diplomatic effort has unfolded at the highest levels. Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty told his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Istanbul on Friday, 23 October, that the memorandum is “absolutely null and void.”
Zaki said Fidan voiced understanding of Egypt’s concerns and proposed consultations, and that the Turkish minister noted the memorandum was signed seven years ago in a different context.
Contacts with Libya have continued in parallel. On Saturday, Egypt’s intelligence chief met Abdulhamid Dbeibah, head of Libya’s Government of National Unity, who said his government was keen to address Egypt’s maritime-boundary concerns through dialogue and joint coordination.
The meeting came after Libya’s House of Representatives unanimously approved the memorandum on 20 October, reversing its earlier rejection and repealing a decision to sever political ties with Ankara. Egypt rejected the ratification on Wednesday, saying it carried no legal consequences for Cairo.
The memorandum itself dates to 27 November 2019, when Turkey and Libya’s then Tripoli-based Government of National Accord, led by Fayez Al-Sarraj, signed it in Istanbul.
Egypt condemned the signing in a Foreign Ministry statement on 28 November 2019, and the foreign ministers of Egypt, Greece and Cyprus agreed that such memoranda had no legal standing.
Egypt and Greece later signed their own maritime demarcation agreement on 6 August 2020, establishing an exclusive economic zone between the two countries. Turkey said at the time that it considered that agreement null and void, leaving the two sides with directly opposed legal positions that the current dispute has brought back to the fore.
