Greece invites Libya for maritime zone talks to ease tensions

Greece has invited Libya's internationally recognised government in Tripoli to start talks on demarcating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean Sea, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said late on Wednesday.

The move is aimed at mending relations between the two neighbours, strained by a controversial maritime deal signed in 2019 between the Libyan government and Turkey, Greece's long-standing foe, which mapped out a sea area close to the Greek island of Crete.

"We invite - and I think you may soon see progress in this area - we invite the Tripoli government to discuss with Greece the delimitation of a continental shelf and an exclusive economic zone," Mitsotakis told local Skai television.

Greece this year launched a new tender to develop its hydrocarbon resources off Crete, a move that Libya has objected to, saying some of the blocks infringed its own maritime zones.

Law and order has been weak in Libya since a 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Gaddafi, with the country divided by factional conflict into eastern and western sections for over a decade.

Therefore, any communication with Libya was not easy, Mitsotakis said. He indicated that Greece was determined to continue talking to both the Tripoli-based government and a parallel administration based in Benghazi.

In recent months, Athens has sought closer cooperation with Libya to help stem a surge in illegal migrant arrivals from the North African country to Greece's southern islands of Gavdos and Crete and passed legislation banning illegal migrants arriving from Libya by sea from requesting asylum.

In an incident earlier this month, the European Union migration commissioner and ministers from Italy, Malta and Greece were denied entry to the eastern part of divided Libya, shortly after meeting the internationally recognised government that controls the west of Libya.

(Reporting by Renee Maltezou; Editing by Angeliki Koutantou, William Maclean)