In the days before Libya’s eastern parliament approved a contentious maritime agreement with Turkey, Greece was trying to assemble its allies - Egypt, Israel and the UAE - to prevent the deal, multiple officials in the region told Middle East Eye.
But on Tuesday, the Libyan House of Representatives in Benghazi ratified the agreement, showing that a fractured Libya, at the very least, could come to a consensus in acknowledging Turkey’s sweeping maritime claims over the Eastern Mediterranean.
“Turkey has cemented itself in Libya. It’s almost impossible now for a Libyan leader in the future to sign a deal with Greece because there is a Libyan consensus,” Constantinos Filis, director of the Institute of Global Affairs in Athens, told Middle East Eye.
But the deal is more than a setback for Greece or a diplomatic notch in the belt for the Mediterranean. It underscores how the Middle East is rearranging itself in the wake of the US-Israeli war on Iran and simmering conflicts across the region.
In sum, the partnerships that Greece depended on to counter Turkey in the Mediterranean failed to deliver because the Middle East is undergoing a geopolitical reordering of priorities.
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Egypt and Turkey have mended fences after a deep rift, while Gulf states like the UAE are looking for new security partners, with the Iran war on the verge of flaring up again. The irony for Greece is that the actions of its closest partner, Israel, have contributed to these shifts.
US vacuum
The maritime rivalry between Greece and Turkey in the Eastern Mediterranean long predates the fracturing of Libya into rival governments following the 2011 removal of Muammar Gaddafi. The two neighbours came close to war in 1996 over an uninhabited island.
Traditionally, Greece and Turkey could push the envelope in their tensions, knowing that the US would intervene to prevent its Nato allies from crossing the line into direct conflict. But that dynamic has changed.
The US is now less engaged in the Middle East and is at loggerheads with Nato on several fronts, like the war in Ukraine. Greece is a big spender in Nato, but Turkey has developed a domestic weapons industry of its own.
Turkey’s regional power is increasing, with an ally now governing Syria and Gulf states looking to it as a security partner as the US steps away.
Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and envoy to Syria and Iraq, said on Tuesday that the US's “grand bargain” of oil for security with the Gulf was “transitioning”.
A Libyan source familiar with the matter told Middle East Eye that eastern Libya’s ratification of the maritime deal is one step in a wider plan to unite Libya under one government that the Trump administration has agreed to with Turkey. The source said the US wants Turkey to broker a deal between rival governments in Benghazi and Tripoli. Turkish intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin visited the latter on Tuesday.
Greece has sought new Middle Eastern allies as the US retreats from its security role, and Turkey flexes its muscles in the region. The maritime deal Ankara has with Libya disregards Greek claims to maritime zones not just in uninhabited islands, but large ones like Crete, home to 600,000 Greeks.
Greece's search for allies to fill the US gap
Athens has doubled down on its relatively warm, historic ties to Egypt. When Turkey first signed the maritime demarcation deal with Libya’s Tripoli-based government, Athens responded by signing a deal with Egypt to counter it.
Greece has also moved closer to the UAE. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was one of the first foreign leaders to visit the Gulf state at the height of the US-Israeli war on Iran. In 2020, when tensions between Greece and Turkey soared, the UAE sent warplanes to Crete.
But most controversially, Greece has forged a close alliance with Israel, which is clashing with Turkey for power in hotspots like Syria and even the Horn of Africa. In August, Greece even agreed to purchase a $3.5bn air defence system from Israel - the largest arms deal in Israel’s history.
Eastern Libya’s ratification of the Turkish maritime deal stings especially hard for Greece because Israel, Egypt and the UAE are the main backers of Khalifa Haftar, the military commander who controls eastern Libya and has traditionally been a rival to Libya’s Tripoli-based government.
Greece has leaned on these relationships to try to counter Turkey in Libya.
In 2025, Greece sought Egyptian support to forestall Benghazi’s ratification of the maritime deal. An Egyptian delegation visited Athens just five days ago to confer with Greece on Libya.
Khalifa Haftar’s son, Saddam Haftar, is increasingly seen as the next ruler of eastern Libya. Although Turkey intervened in Libya’s civil war to prevent his father from capturing Tripoli, Saddam has moved closer to Ankara. This summer, with some nudging from the UAE, Saddam was convinced to visit Athens despite his rapprochement with Turkey, MEE understands.
“It’s not up to Egypt or the UAE to support us in Libya. They have other interests. It was unwise for Greece to expect that they would support Greece at the sake of their own interests,” Filis told MEE.
Turkey and Egypt's rapprochement
Until a few years ago, both Egypt and the UAE were at loggerheads with Turkey. Cairo and Abu Dhabi supported the Haftars in Libya’s civil war, while Turkey backed the government in Tripoli. But since then, these countries have taken steps to restore ties.
Egyptian officials have stressed multiple times to MEE that Cairo’s rapprochement is not aimed at Greece. Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty held a call with his Greek counterpart on Tuesday, reaffirming their shared interests.
Egypt does not want to see the Eastern Mediterranean turned into a Turkish lake, Arab officials tell MEE, but Egypt and Turkey now converge in more hotspots than they compete.
Both countries are wary of Israeli expansionism in the wake of the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attacks. Israel has carried out a genocide in Gaza and occupies swathes of Syria and Lebanon.
Egypt and Turkey are also aligned in the Red Sea. Both states support Somalia and oppose Israel’s recognition of a breakaway Somaliland republic. They also support Sudan’s armed forces against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary, which is friendly to Israel, by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own admission.
In Libya, there is also room for cooperation. Egypt wants to build a $1bn oil pipeline from Tobruk to the port of Alexandria.
While the UAE and Turkey are on opposite sides of these regional hotspots like Sudan, they have since moved to manage their differences. For example, in 2022, the UAE purchased Turkish-made TB2 drones.
Then there is Israel.
Notably, Eastern Libya’s recognition of Turkey’s maritime claims came the week that Netanyahu shared a map that showed the territory as “friendly” to Israel, the UAE and Greece.
Saddam Haftar even met in September with Netanyahu in the UAE, a Libyan source told MEE, confirming previous reporting. But Israel might see a wider Turkish claim to the Eastern Mediterranean pushing Greece closer into its orbit, one European official told MEE.
The fact that Greece’s partners did not mobilise to prevent Eastern Libya’s ratification of the maritime deal shows just how much the Middle East is changing.
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