By Andrew McGregor
A growing dispute in the eastern Mediterranean over control of significant and recently discovered offshore energy reserves is aggravating already-tense relations between Türkiye and Israel and creating divisions within NATO while simultaneously assisting the unification of Libya’s rival governments. At the center of these developments is the pending implementation of the 2019 Turkish-Libyan Eastern Mediterranean maritime boundary memorandum.
After the fall of Mu’ammar Qaddafi in 2011, Libya became divided between the internationally recognized Government of National Unity (GNU) of Prime Minister ‘Abd al-Hamid Dbeibah in the west (supported by the GNU’s Libyan Army) and the administration of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (a long-time CIA asset), his so-called Libyan National Army (LNA) and the Tobruk-based House of Representatives (HoR) in the east and south. The greatest obstacle to unification is the 82-year-old Haftar’s desire to establish a ruling family dynasty with his son Saddam next-in-line to rule Libya. In the meantime, Türkiye and the US continue to encourage a pathway to full Libyan military and economic integration. A unified Libya would easily become an attractive and embargo-free market for Türkiye’s rapidly expanding arms industry, estimated to be worth nearly $11 billion.
Ankara’s principal aim in shifting its sole support from the Tripoli-based GNU to a broader embrace of both the GNU and its LNA/HoR rivals in Benghazi and Tobruk is to encourage HoR ratification of the 2019 Türkiye -Libya Maritime Agreement. Despite having the largest oil reserves in Africa, Libya’s divided rule has inhibited attempts to increase foreign investment and raise daily production of oil from 1.4 million barrels per day to 2 million barrels per day within the next four years. Most of the oil fields and export terminals in Libya remain under the control of the Haftar family, which has received support from the UAE, Egypt and Russia.
The maritime agreement would see most of the offshore energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean split between Libya and Türkiye, to the immense discomfort of Greece, Cyprus and Israel, all of whom have their own economic interests in the region.
Israel and Türkiye
Turkish Defense Minister Yaşar Güler informed Türkiye’s parliament on August 10 that the military was preparing for “possible crisis, tension and war” with regard to the growing military alignment of Israel and traditional rival Greece in a Mediterranean region Ankara increasingly views as its own.
Allegedly acting on intelligence that suggested Türkiye’s army was preparing to station troops and weapons at Syria’s Abu al-Duhur airbase (70 km from the Turkish border), Israeli jets bombed the dormant base on August 18.
After the strike, Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu told an army podcast: “”We will not tolerate a Turkish military entrenchment moving southward, because it threatens us,” adding that an earlier warning against a Turkish military presence at the mostly empty base was ignored: “Apparently they didn’t hear it, so we made sure they understood it more clearly.” Israel opposes any move that could restrict the ability of Israeli warplanes to operate freely in Syrian airspace. According to Syrian foreign minister Asaad al-Shaibani, the base had been visited by a delegation of Turkish military officers several days before the strike, but this was only in the context of “training and an exchange of expertise.” Other officials claimed that only a Turkish technical team was present at the base, charged with repairs to a runway and the control tower.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan suggested the strikes were linked to upcoming elections in Israel but would not deter Ankara’s cooperation with Damascus: “We will not stop supporting our neighbours in getting back on their feet merely because it unsettles murderous networks with the blood of innocent people on their hands.” Netanyahu in turn has accused President Erdoğan of accommodating “Iran’s terror regime and its proxies” as well as “massacring his own Kurdish citizens.” The Israeli attack, carried out without prior US notification, was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes on Syria since the overthrow of former Syrian president Bashar al-Asad.
Turkish Involvement in Libya
Türkiye’s connection to Libya stretches back to 1551, when Libya was added to the Ottoman Empire. It remained so (with an interlude of independent rule by the Karamanli Turks, 1711-1835) until the 1911-1912 Italo-Ottoman war led to the territory coming under Italian control. Over a century would pass before Turks would once more make their presence felt in their former African colony.
Khalifa Haftar’s Egyptian-backed 2019 LNA offensive on Tripoli came to a shuddering halt when Türkiye intervened on Tripoli’s side. Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drones inflicted terrible damage on LNA formations while LNA Russian air-defense systems were jammed by Turkish electronic counter-measures. Ankara’s commitment increased with the deployment of troops and trainers, eventually leading to a Turkish naval presence at Misrata and an airbase at al-Watiya. Türkiye’s military support of Tripoli has also been followed by hundreds of projects in the energy, construction and infrastructure sectors.
Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan visited Khalifa and Saddam Haftar (deputy commander of the LNA) in Benghazi on August 12, the latest in a series of moves establishing closer ties between Türkiye and the Benghazi-based Haftar regime that began in the spring of 2025. Fidan noted Türkiye’s “One Libya policy,” which “makes no distinction between Libya’s west, east and south.”
To avoid accusations of favoring one side over the other, Fidan first visited GNU prime minister ‘Abd al-Hamid Dbeibah in Tripoli before visiting the Libya Mission Group Command of the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK). Saddam had earlier been Fidan’s guest in Ankara on July 24, his third visit in a year. The latest discussions appear to have been aimed in part at addressing eastern Libya’s concerns about its prior exclusion from revenue streams and other financial benefits of enhanced oil exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.
*Image above: Hakan Fidan visiting the mausoleum of ‘Umar al-Mukhtar.
On August 12, Fidan visited the mausoleum of Libyan independence hero ‘Umar al-Mukhtar, who at one point in his long career fought in Libya alongside Ottoman volunteers including the Ottoman officer Mustafa Kemal (later Atatürk, founder of modern-day Türkiye), after the official Ottoman surrender in the Italo-Ottoman war of 1911-1912 (al-Mukhtar was captured and executed by Italian forces in 1931).
In a sign of the growing military cooperation between Türkiye and Libya, Turkish chief of staff General Selçuk Bayraktaroğlu hosted his Libyan counterpart, Lieutenant General Salah al-Namroush, in Ankara on August 30. The meeting focused on air force and special forces operations as well as means of improving Libyan military performance. Ibrahim Kalin, head of the Turkish Millî İstihbarat Teşkilati (MIT - National Intelligence Organization), also met Saddam Haftar in Benghazi in late August.
Ankara pursues a “One Army, One Libya” approach to Libya’s divided military. To this end, Türkiye facilitated the April-May Efes-2026 military exercise involving the cooperative participation of troops from both sides of the Libyan divide. Türkiye has also begun training of troops from both the GNU’s Libyan Army and the LNA inside Türkiye.
Ankara’s shift to more equitable dealing with both Libyan factions is a sensitive undertaking; the Haftar clan is only onside so long as they see unification leading to their domination of a restructured Libya, while Dbeibah and the GNU watch closely for signs of Turkish backsliding.
The Mediterranean Energy Scheme
Türkiye’s assertive approach to the eastern Mediterranean has its roots in the Mavi Vatan (Blue Homeland) maritime doctrine, which was developed in 2006 by senior commanders of the Turkish navy. The doctrine enables claims to roughly 178,000 square miles of maritime territory and its hydrocarbon resources, including large parts of the Black Sea, the Aegean and the eastern Mediterranean, all without regard to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), never ratified by Türkiye, the United States or Israel.
At the core of the regional dispute is Türkiye’s establishment of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ), defined under UNCLOS as maritime regions extending as far as 188 nautical miles beyond the traditional 12-mile national territorial limit. An EEZ does not grant full sovereignty, but allows for sovereign rights over economic resources below the surface. This includes the exploitation of oil and gas resources. The eastern Mediterranean is believed to host significant offshore reserves of natural gas.
The 2019 Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement ignores certain Greek and Greek Cypriot claims in the Mediterranean. Cyprus has been divided since 1974 following a coup by Greek Cypriot nationalists and a subsequent Turkish military intervention in the northern half of the island.[1] Greece, Cyprus, Egypt and Israel all reject the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement as a violation of their own maritime claims in the region. Also in play is the proposed, but now stalled, East Med Pipeline that would ship natural gas from Israel’s offshore fields through Cyprus to Greece and Italy.
Greek opposition to the maritime agreement is focused on its failure to recognize the EEZ boundaries of Crete and the Greek Island of Kastellorizo, which lies one mile off the southern coast of Türkiye. Questions have been raised in the Turkish parliament regarding the alleged militarization of Greek islands in the eastern Aegean close to Türkiye, including the deployment of Israeli anti-aircraft systems, including Patriot missile batteries. Türkiye maintains that under the 1923 Lausanne Agreement (Article 4 and Article 13), these islands should be demilitarized due to their proximity to the Turkish mainland to prevent them from being used for potential military action against Türkiye. On the other hand, Athens claims the right to self-defense in the militarization of the islands, particularly in regard to “Turkish threats.”
In July, Greece approved the purchase of a €3.5 billion ($4 billion) AI-based radar and missile air defense system from Israel to form the core component of the so-called “Achilles Shield” system. The Israeli technology is already proven through use in Israel’s “Iron Dome” aerial defense system. The deal, which breaks from a larger European reticence to interact with Israel following its devastation of Gaza, was signed in Tel Aviv on August 31. As part of a broader military modernization (with one eye on Turkish military improvements), Greece is also preparing to buy as many as 40 American-built F-35 fighter jets as well as frigates from Italy and France. Popular opposition to Israeli operations in Gaza and the West Bank is strong in Greece , making Israel an unlikely ally in Greece’s long-standing rivalry with Türkiye, its NATO ally; former finance minister Yanis Varoufakis described the deal as part of “the transformation of Greece into an Israeli satellite.”
Containing Israel
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has encouraged President Trump to prevent Türkiye’s return to the Lockheed Martin F-35 development program on the grounds that Türkiye is “a regime infected by the Muslim Brotherhood, an extreme movement that hates America and chants ‘Death to America.’” Left unsaid is that a fleet of Turkish F-35s could challenge Israel’s aerial dominance in the region, a necessary component of Israeli defense and expansion efforts.
Having so far failed in its ongoing effort to crush the Iranian threat or even to eliminate the menace of Hezbollah along its northern border, Israel is particularly sensitive to the danger posed by a Syrian-Turkish alliance against Israel. The promise of the Abraham Accords, once so favorable to Israel’s long-term security, has been shattered by regional opposition to Israeli methods in Gaza. Further challenges to Israel’s economic prosperity posed by the Turkish-Libyan maritime agreement have created alarm in the Israeli media, which has accused Ankara of seeking “to delegitimize the Israel Defense Forces, isolate Israeli officials, and erode Israel’s sovereign right to self-defense” while serving as “a political, logistical, and financial sanctuary for senior Hamas leadership.”
A report by Israel’s Dor Moria think tank described Türkiye’s moves in the region (including its activities in Libya) as a “strategic encirclement” of Israel, confining its operational space and its development of an independent energy sector. In the interim, Türkiye claims its chief motivation in Syria is to assist in rebuilding the country—a goal supported by the United States and the wider international community—and ultimately to bring an end to the Syrian civil war that has devastated the region for more than a decade.
Conclusion
Türkiye is a challenge to Israel’s plan to become the dominant regional power in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean. In the last three decades, Türkiye’s post-WWI embrace of the secular, Western-oriented ideology of Mustafa Kemal has been steadily challenged by neo-Ottomanism and a revival of Türkiye’s Islamic identity under President Erdoğan leadership. These trends, endorsed by Türkiye’s ruling party, recall that Palestine, Libya, Egypt and Syria were all once part of the Turkish-dominated Ottoman Empire. While a return to imperial status is out of the question for a host of reasons, Ankara sees these nations as potential partners for a post-Iran War regional realignment independent of superpower dominance. The Mecca Joint Deterrence Agreement, signed on August 7 by Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, is a major step in this strategic realignment.
Working in Ankara’s favor is Washington’s growing interest in Libyan unification and stability; Chevron and Exxon Mobil have obtained contracts this year to extract oil in both offshore blocks and in the Sirte Basin. Washington is nonetheless finding itself trapped in an uneasy situation as Israel’s principal ally and a NATO ally of both Greece and Türkiye, the latter still fielding the second-largest military in the alliance. The Erdoğan government may see opportunities in the US administration’s increasing disinterest in the NATO partnership that would allow Ankara to abandon its long and fruitless attempts at European integration in favor of a return to regional leadership in a community of Islamic nations rather than its ongoing role as the West’s perennially spurned suitor.
[1] The island has been divided since 1974 following a military coup in Cyprus backed by a military junta in Greece, which sparked a Turkish military intervention in northern Cyprus to protect the rights of its Turkish minority under Article IV because it is a guarantor power under the Treaty of Guarantee signed in 1960 with Greece, and the United Kingdom.
About the Author:
Dr. Andrew McGregor is director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based consultancy specializing in the security issues of Africa and the Islamic world.
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