Turkey slams EU for Libya maritime pact remarks

Turkey criticised a European Council decision rejecting last month’s Turkish-Libyan maritime pact, Anadolu Agency reports.

“The European Union has no authority to decide maritime jurisdiction and the EU is not an international court, they cannot give a verdict on the legality of the Libyan agreement,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said in a statement.

He said the EU leaders in Brussels claiming the pact “violates the sovereign rights of third countries” is another example of EU hypocrisy toward Turkey.

“The EU was silent when the Greek Cypriot administration made an agreement, acting like regular state and representing the entire island even they had no authority with regional countries against Turkey and Turkish Cypriots in 2003, 2007, and 2010. The EU ignored Greece’s occupation of Libya’s continental shelf,” he added.

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Aksoy stressed: “This attitude cannot discourage us from defending the rights and interests of our country and the Turkish Cypriots in the Eastern Mediterranean.”

Twenty-seven member of the EU gathered Friday in Brussels and agreed on a statement claiming Turkish-Libyan maritime pact “violates the sovereign rights of third countries.”