ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey is interested in an offer from Tripoli to carry out energy exploration offshore Libya, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said on Wednesday.
“Libya has offered to us to work with our seismic vessels offshore. Frankly, we are warm to this. So we can be in the Libyan offshore to carry out seismic work,” he told the state-owned Anadolu news agency.
In 2020, NATO member Turkey sent military personnel to Libya to train and support a Tripoli-based government against eastern commander Khalifa Haftar’s forces, the Libyan National Army. Later that year it agreed with Tripoli a maritime demarcation accord, which was disputed by Egypt and Greece.
In 2022, Ankara and Tripoli also signed a preliminary accord on energy exploration, which Egypt and Greece oppose.
Bayraktar added that Turkey was also interested in other projects in Libya and needed the “right project and partner”.
Turkey has been at odds with Greece, also a NATO member, over maritime jurisdiction in the eastern Mediterranean. Disputes over hydrocarbon exploration strained ties between Ankara, Greece and the European Union, though relations improved in recent years as tensions have eased.
Bayraktar also said Turkey was interested in gas fields off Egypt, with whom Turkey has recently begun mending ties after a decade of animosity. The two countries were working on a project regarding Cairo’s gas procurement that involved Turkish floating storage regasification unit (FSRU) ships, he said.
He also said Ankara aimed to send its Oruc Reis exploration vessel to Somalia by October to carry out seismic work there as part of a hydrocarbon cooperation deal between the countries.
(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Ros Russell)
