Turkey-Greece maritime spat threatens to spill into EU summit

ATHENS — A controversial maritime border deal between Libya and Turkey has riled Greece, annoyed the European Union — and could intrude on Friday’s EU leaders’ summit. Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis will raise the issue during the informal meeting of EU leaders in Dublin, according to a senior official in Athens who spoke on condition of being granted anonymity.

The summit is supposed to focus on AI and Ukraine. The row centers on a Turkey-Libya agreement that claims a corridor in the eastern Mediterranean between Greece and Cyprus — waters Athens says fall within its exclusive economic zone and where the EU has backed energy and connectivity projects.

“Greece has explicitly stated … that in the event of any escalation, it will request sanctions and support from the European Union,” Greece’s Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis said last week in an interview with local TV. Despite being NATO allies, Greece and Turkey have quarreled over maritime boundaries and overlapping claims to their continental shelves.