All 27 EU member states have backed a joint statement rejecting the Turkey-Libya maritime memorandum, which the EU said on Wednesday, “violates the sovereign rights of third States” and “does not comply with the Law of the Sea”.

The statement, issued by EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, said the 2019 memorandum is “null and void and cannot produce legal consequences for third States”.

The EU said it “deeply regrets” its ratification by the Libyan parliament on 20 October.

The bloc said its position was “firm and clear” and had been set out in European Council conclusions in December 2019 and repeated in June 2025.

It said it has a strategic interest in a stable and secure Eastern Mediterranean and called on all countries to respect the sovereign rights of every member state, in line with EU law and international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Kallas added that good neighbourly relations and progress on the Cyprus settlement process were of high importance.

European Council president Antonio Costa and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen offered “solidarity” to Greece and Cyprus.

They said the agreement “does not comply with the law of the sea” and reiterated the EU’s “well-known position against any outside interference in Libya”.

The Libyan parliament voted unanimously on Tuesday to adopt the agreement.

It states that the exclusive economic zones of Libya and Turkey share a border in the Mediterranean, located south-east of the Greek island of Crete.

Turkey signed the deal in 2019 with the Libyan government of national accord, but it had not been ratified by Libya’s legislature until now.

The government of national unity replaced that administration in 2021 and is the only internationally recognised government of Libya.

Turkey’s MIT intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin was in Libya on Tuesday to meet Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

The Cypriot foreign ministry called the memorandum “illegal, null and void”, while Athens said, “geography and the international law of the sea do not change with unilateral, legally unfounded parliamentary decisions”.

Both countries are signatories to the UN convention on the law of the sea, though Turkey is not, and Libya signed it in 1984 but never ratified it.

The maritime boundary agreement reached between Turkey and Libya, which was ratified by the Libyan parliament on Tuesday, “infringes on the sovereign rights of third states”, the European Union’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said on Wednesday, after she met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Brussels.

“I had an extensive discussion with my colleague Hakan Fidan on a range of issues. Good neighbourly relations and advancing the Cyprus settlement process are of high importance. I raised yesterday’s Libyan vote … and stressed that it infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states,” she said after the meeting.

Away from the matter of the eastern Mediterranean, she said that she had also spoken to Fidan about “Russia’s dangerous Black Sea escalation”, which has seen commercial vessels be targeted by missile fire, and that she had “emphasised the need to step up the pressure on Moscow to end the war”.

“The EU and Turkey both support a Black Sea freedom of navigation arrangement,” she said.

She said that she and Fidan had also “addressed developments in the south Caucasus and across the Middle East”, and on this front said that “Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia and Yemen are textbook terror tactics and must end”, and that “in the Strait of Hormuz, Iran is making shipping dangerous and expenses”.

“Freedom of navigation must be restored without tolls or fees,” she added.

Fidan made no statement after the meeting.

Greece, Cyprus believe islands are entitled to full EEZ

The maritime agreement was unanimously passed by Libya’s parliament on Tuesday, some seven years after it had initially been signed by the internationally recognised Libyan government and Turkey in 2019.

However, Greece and the Republic of Cyprus object to the deal, saying that Turkey and Libya do not share a maritime border because islands are each entitled to a full exclusive economic zone, and that therefore, the sea in question belongs to Cyprus and Crete. Turkey’s position is that islands are not entitled to a full EEZ.

Wednesday’s meeting came after European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had said that they “deeply regret” the Libyan parliament’s ratification of the deal, which, they said, “infringes upon the sovereign rights of third states”, “does not comply with the law of the sea”, and “is null and void”.

“We reaffirm our solidarity with Greece and Cyprus. We reiterate the EU’s well-known position against any outside interference in Libya,” they said.

On the other side of the argument, Turkey’s presidential press office director Burhanettin Duran described Tuesday’s vote as “an important advancement towards protecting the shared rights and interests of both nations in the eastern Mediterranean, establishing maritime jurisdiction areas on the basis of equity, and strengthening regional cooperation”.

“Under the leadership of our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey will continue to safeguard its rights and interests within the Blue Homeland, while further developing its relations with friendly and brotherly Libya and promoting equitable resource sharing, peace, and stability in the eastern Mediterranean”.

A total of 36 people have been arrested and 16 more are wanted as the Turkish authorities led a crackdown into what was described as the illegal trafficking of egg cells, Turkish Justice Minister Akin Gurlek said on Monday, with the trafficking rings said to be linked to Cyprus.

He explained that the Turkish authorities had received a tip-off, and that following an investigation led by the Istanbul Anatolian chief public prosecutor’s office, “findings were uncovered regarding the organised operation of illegal reproductive cell trafficking linked to Turkey, the TRNC, Albania and Georgia”.

This investigation, he said, revealed that “Turkish citizen women were directed abroad and engaged in egg sales in exchange for financial gain”.

“Within the scope of the investigation, it was determined that a total of 811 egg sales were conducted by 41 women,” he said.

As such, he said, judicial proceedings have been initiated against a total of 53 people – the 36 who were arrested, the 16 who are wanted, and one other individual who is already in prison. Of the 16 who are wanted, he said that seven are confirmed to be outside Turkey at present.

He said that those 53 people are “one organisation leader, five organisation managers, 41 donor women, two obstetrics and gynaecology specialists and four travel organisers”.

“No financial gain is above human dignity and bodily integrity. Under the leadership of our President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, we will resolutely continue our efforts to uncover all connections of criminal organisations, identify those responsible and ensure they are held accountable,” he said.

IVF children being conceived using wrong donors in Cyprus

The arrests are the latest episode in a difficult year for the Turkish Cypriot in vitro fertilisation industry, with the BBC having reported in August that at least 30 children have been conceived through IVF treatment using the wrong sperm or egg donors at clinics operated under the watch of the Turkish Cypriot authorities.

In all cases, it said that the children’s parents “carefully selected anonymous donors based in information such as their medical history, appearance, personality, education and hobbies”, but that “they have concerns that the requested sperm and egg donors may not have been used in their fertility treatments”.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle reported that IVF clinics operated under the watch of the Turkish Cypriot authorities were offering prospective parents the option of choosing their baby’s sex, with ruling party the UBP’s secretary-general Ahmet Savasan appearing to admit to the practice on camera.

He told Deutsche Welle that “we do not do sex selection in Cyprus for the sake of sex selection” but then was recorded telephoning someone and saying that “if there is a reference to sex selection on our website, you need to take it down”.

Later, when reporters visited an IVF clinic, they were told that they could select the sex of their child for €6,000.

Opposition political party CTP representative Dogus Derya said of the system in April that “the lack of oversight not only creates individual grievances but also undermines public trust and calls into question the healthcare system”.

She also said that the case “raises serious suspicions of abuse, particularly regarding the physical and economic rights of young women who donate eggs”.