Aguila Saleh, the Speaker of the Libyan Parliament, requested that Antonio Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, not recognise the oil and gas exploration agreements that the Abdel Hamid al-Dabaiba-led Government of National Unity had made with the State of Turkey and not hold the Libyan government accountable for them.
Saleh stated this in a letter he sent to the UN Secretary-General on Wednesday, claiming that the Dabaiba government “has ended its legal mandate and failed to perform its duties” because it “was involved in concluding memoranda of understanding and agreements for oil and gas exploration in the economic waters of the eastern Mediterranean.” With Turkey, who is in breach of Political Agreement’s Article Six, Paragraph 10.
According to the political agreement’s tenth paragraph’s Article 6, “the executive authority shall not, during the preliminary stage, consider new or previous agreements or decisions that threaten the stability of the Libyan state’s foreign relations or impose long-term commitments on it.
“Committing this purposeful breach would undermine the security and stability of the eastern Mediterranean region as well as with neighbouring nations like Egypt, Greece, and Cyprus, the Speaker of the Libyan Parliament emphasised.
Saleh also reaffirmed that the Fathi Bashagha government, which was chosen by Parliament, is the legitimate government in Libya, urging that the memoranda of understanding signed by the Dabaiba government be regarded as “void and having no legal effect as if they were not and not binding on the Libyan state.
And on Monday, during a high-level Turkish delegation’s visit to the Libyan capital, Tripoli, led by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and including Ministers of Defense Hulusi Akar, Energy, Natural Resources, and Trade, Senior Advisor to the Turkish President, Ibrahim Kalin, Turkey signed new agreements with the Dabaiba government allowing its companies to explore for oil and gas in Libyan waters.
The new agreements between the Dabaiba government and Turkey sparked a heated political debate in Libya and further polarised the nation, which is already suffering from the effects of a power struggle between two rival governments. Some parties defended the viability and benefit of these new agreements for the nation, while others viewed them as illegal because they violated international law and the Dabaiba government’s termination of its mandate.
The Dabaiba and Turkey accords are not to be recognised, according to a call from the Libyan parliament to the UN.
About Author
