CAIRO — Greece’s Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias visited the Egyptian capital Cairo to ask for renewed talks for an agreement on the delimitation of maritime zones between the two countries after doing so with Italy.

That was a response to Turkey making a deal with Libya dividing the seas between them and claiming waters off Greek islands while also planning to drill for energy off Crete, ratcheting up the tension as it did with drilling off Cyprus.

Dendias met Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in a meeting that lasted more than an hour, before talking with Foreign Minister Sameh Sukri, said Kathimerini, as Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis tries to broaden an alliance against Turkey.

The paper said the New Democracy government is effectively trying to negate the Turkey-Libya deal that is unrecognized by any other country with the United Nations so far not ratifying a map Turkey sent for a review.

Greece and Egypt have differences, however, although they want to work together on energy development. Egypt does not want to include the Greek island of Kastellorizo near the Turkish coast, whose sovereignty is disputed by Turkey.

In an article for Egypt’s Al Ahram newspaper, Dendias bemoaned that “an expansionist, revisionist Turkey is undermining regional security and stability, as well as peace in Libya, which President al-Sisi is trying to promote through his most recent proposal and which Greece, along with other countries in the region, has welcomed.

“Turkey is trying to manipulate the Arab world according to its own ‘hegemonic’ pursuits. It is causing problems with all its neighbors, violating the sovereignty of Libya, Syria and Cyprus,” he said, stressing that “this is a Turkey undermining the very future of the region.”