Greek Foreign Minister Gerapetritis to Meet Marshal Khalifa Haftar in Benghazi

Greek Foreign Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis is set to travel to Benghazi, Libya, on Saturday, March 28, 2026, where he will meet with Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the commander of the Libyan National Army. The visit, announced on Friday, March 27, marks a significant diplomatic engagement between Athens and Benghazi. Gerapetritis will also attend the inauguration of the new building of the Consulate General of Greece in Benghazi during the same trip. The dual purpose of the visit — high-level military and political talks alongside a consular ceremony — reflects Greece's efforts to maintain active diplomatic channels across Libya's divided political landscape. The trip was confirmed by two Greek news outlets, Nautical and Commercial News and SKAI, on the morning of March 27.

Tripoli visit follows days later on April 1 Following the Benghazi leg, Gerapetritis is scheduled to travel to Tripoli on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, for meetings with Libyan officials. The two visits — to Benghazi in the east and Tripoli in the west — reflect the split nature of Libyan governance, with different authorities controlling each city. No specific names of Tripoli officials were provided in the source articles. The back-to-back visits to both power centers signal Athens's intention to engage with all major Libyan stakeholders. Greece has maintained diplomatic relations with both sides of Libya's political divide, and the consulate inauguration in Benghazi underscores a concrete institutional investment in the eastern part of the country. The scheduling of the Tripoli visit just four days after the Benghazi meeting suggests a coordinated diplomatic push rather than isolated engagements.

Haftar commands eastern Libya from Tobruk base Khalifa Haftar, born November 7, 1943, is a Libyan military officer and politician who commands the Libyan National Army from its Tobruk base in eastern Libya. His forces control significant portions of eastern and southern Libya, making him one of the most powerful figures in the country's ongoing political fragmentation. A meeting with the Greek foreign minister carries weight given Haftar's influence over maritime security in the central Mediterranean, a region of direct strategic concern to Greece. Libya has been divided between rival administrations since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, with a Tripoli-based internationally recognized government in the west and Haftar-aligned authorities in the east. Greece shares maritime borders and overlapping interests in the Mediterranean with Libya, and the two countries have at times clashed over competing maritime delimitation claims, particularly following a 2019 memorandum between Turkey and the Tripoli government that Greece rejected as illegal. Greek diplomatic engagement with both Libyan factions has been a consistent feature of Athens's foreign policy in the years since Libya's fragmentation. Greece's interest in stable relations with Benghazi also connects to energy exploration rights and migration flows across the central Mediterranean, both of which are affected by conditions in eastern Libya.

Greece stays neutral on Iran conflict, Gerapetritis said The Benghazi and Tripoli visits come as Gerapetritis has been active on multiple regional diplomatic fronts. On March 16, 2026, he stated that Greece had no intention of becoming involved in the US- and Israel-led military operation against Iran. Days later, on March 17, he expressed concern about the impact of the conflict on maritime traffic, stating that separate agreements governing passage through the Strait of Hormuz were not optimal from Greece's perspective, given the country's large shipping sector. The Libya trip therefore fits into a broader pattern of Greek diplomatic activity aimed at managing regional instability through direct engagement. Gerapetritis has served as Greece's Minister of Foreign Affairs since June 2023, having previously held ministerial roles in infrastructure and as Minister of State. His visit to Libya represents one of the more prominent bilateral engagements by a senior Greek official with Libyan authorities in the current period.

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