Greece and Egypt reach compromise in eastern Mediterranean

Greece and Egypt reached a compromise on Monday in their disagreement over oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean area.

The spat had allowed Ankara to mount a diplomatic offensive in an attempt to show that Turkey and Egypt were close to reaching an agreement of their own on maritime-exploration zones.

However, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis spoke a few days ago with Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sis

i.

Soon after, it was announced that Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias would travel to Cairo on Monday to meet his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry.

After the meeting, Dendias said the contentious issue concerning one of the three Egyptian exploration areas, which follows the boundaries of a previous agreement between the two countries and extends eastwards into an area claimed by Turkey, was merely a “technical one” and had been resolved. The coordinates of the disputed block were reportedly adjusted after consultations between Egyptian and Greek authorities.

Also, Egypt’s Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources has issued a new map of exploration blocks that will be put to a tender.

The map reassigns the position of block EGY-MED-W18 so that it does not extend beyond the 28^th meridian and stays within the boundaries of Egypt’s designation of its exclusive economic zone.

The new map comes in the wake of a meeting in Cairo on Monday between Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias and his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry, where the technical details of EGY-MED-W18 were also discussed.

*More on GCT: Egypt denies Turkey’s *claims* of talks on East Med, says committed to Greece