Greek foreign minister set to visit eastern Libya to meet with commander Haftar

ATHENS

Greek Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis is set to visit Benghazi to meet with Khalifa Haftar, commander of the eastern Libyan forces, the country’s Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.

Gerapetritis will also visit Tripoli on July 15 to meet with officials of the Government of National Accord (GNA), the ministry added.

The ministry announcement came amid expanding diplomatic, military, and economic ties between the government in eastern Libya and Türkiye, which already maintained extensive and improved relations with the GNA.

In recent weeks, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and other senior Greek decision-makers reacted to reports that the parliament in eastern Libya will approve the maritime delimitation agreement between Libya and Türkiye in 2019, calling it “illegal and invalid.”

Earlier in June, the Libyan Foreign Ministry slammed Greece's tender for hydrocarbon exploration off Crete, pointing out that some of the blocks in the tender overlap with Libya's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

Also in June, it was announced that Türkiye's state-owned Turkish Petroleum Corporation (TPAO) and Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) will carry out a geological and geophysical study of Libya's four offshore areas.