Greece lodges objection at UN over Libya-Turkey maritime border deal

Greece has lodged objections at the UN over an accord between Libya and Turkey mapping out maritime boundaries, saying it's a violation of international law, a government spokesman said in Athens on Tuesday.

Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador in response to the deal last week, infuriated at the pact, which skirts the Greek island of Crete and infringes, in Athens’s view, its continental shelf.

“This agreement was compiled in bad faith,” Reuters quoted the spokesman, Stelios Petsas, as saying. It violates the UN Law of the Sea, Petsas continued, adding that the sea zones of Turkey and Libya “do not meet, and nor is there a sea border between the two states.”

The deal carves out a slanting sea corridor of maritime boundaries at the closest points between Libya and Turkey, potentially clearing the way for oil and gas searches there.