Baladiyat of Libya

In a letter to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Greece's permanent representative to the organization, Evangelos Sekeris, says that Libya's recent decision to declare a 24-nautical mile contiguous zone, extending beyond its 12-nautical mile territorial sea, violates international law in three key respects.

A cyclist aged 79 was killed on Saturday in southern Greece after being hit on a provincial road in Tripoli by a car driven by a 37-year-old man.

The elderly man was rushed to the Pan-Arcadian Hospital of Tripoli but died of his injuries a short time later. Local police launched an investigation into the circumstances of the accident.

After several years of virtually nonexistent relations, Foreign Minister George Gerapetritis spoke on the telephone Wednesday with his Libyan counterpart Najla Mangoush, signaling that contacts between Athens and Tripoli are at a turning point in the effort to build functional channels of communication.

Nine suspected people smugglers were granted on Monday 24 hours to prepare their testimony over accusations that they captained the fishing trawler that sank off the southern coast of Greece last week, killing 78 and leaving hundreds of others presumed dead.

Their attorneys asked for the brief extension to study the case file. 

A boat carrying about 500 migrants, including a newborn baby and pregnant women, has disappeared in the central Mediterranean, two charities said on Friday.

Alarm Phone, a group that picks up calls from migrant vessels in distress, said it lost contact with the boat on Wednesday morning.

In a letter to the United Nations secretary-general, Greece's permanent representative to the UN, Evangelos Sekeris, expressed Athens' complete opposition to Libya's claims regarding the limits of its maritime zones, as reflected in a verbal communication from the Tripoli government to Cairo. 

Türkiye and Egypt have agreed to work more closely to resolve the ongoing conflict in Libya by helping the two rival Libyan groups to set up a joint military unit as part of the unification efforts in the North African country.

The failure to hold a consultative meeting of Arab League foreign ministers in the Libyan capital is seen as evidence of the diplomatic isolation of the Tripoli government, even among Arab states. 

Indicatively, of the 22 countries in the Arab League, 15 did not attend, and neither did its secretary-general, Ahmed Aboul Gheit. 

Libya's Government of National Unity (GNU) told Turkey "not to take seriously" a court ruling that suspended an energy exploration deal that the Tripoli government signed with Ankara last year, the Turkish foreign minister said on Thursday.

A Libyan court on Monday suspended an energy exploration deal that the Tripoli government signed last year with Turkey, a judiciary source said, pausing an agreement that angered other Mediterranean powers and inflamed Libya's own internal crisis.