The so-called Turkey-Libya memorandum on the delimitation of maritime zones constitutes a flagrant violation of the fundamental principles of international law of the sea, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said during an open debate hosted by Greece’s presidency of the United Nations Security Council, entitled “Maintaining International Peace and Security: Emerging Technologies and Maritime Security”.

“It is illegal, it is arbitrary and it defies geography itself,” Mitsotakis said.

The prime minister also stressed: “International law cannot be applied selectively, and the rules governing our seas cannot be rewritten to serve the ambitions of individual states.

“Greece and Libya are natural maritime neighbours, with opposite coastlines, and have the right under international law to delimit their maritime zones by agreement. Turkey and Libya, by contrast, do not have opposite or adjacent coastlines. Nevertheless, they have attempted to establish an artificial maritime boundary between them. This is absurd. There is no precedent for such a diagonal delimitation.”