https://curia.europa.eu/juris/docume...=1&cid=5603798 Based on that ruling it reads like it only would count for EU261 if it started from the EU and was ticketed by an EU carrier.
"[It] must be interpreted as meaning that a passenger on a connecting flight, comprising two legs and subject to a single booking with a Community carrier, departing from an airport located in the territory of a Member State and arriving at an airport located in a third country via another airport in that third country," the court explained, "is entitled to compensation from the third-country air carrier which operated the entirety of that flight acting on behalf of that Community carrier, where that passenger has reached his or her final destination with a delay of more than three hours caused in the second leg of the said flight."
but someone more familiar with EU law would likely know better.