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The issue of the sea and fallen Greek soldiers/ Xhaçka today in Athens, two hours of talks with Dendias

Politiko 2022-12-02 09:13:22

The issue of the sea and fallen Greek soldiers/ Xhaçka today in Athens,

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Olta Xhaçka, traveled today to Greece, where she will pay an official visit. She will be welcomed in Athens by her counterpart Nikos Dendias. Their talks are expected to last about two hours.

According to the press release of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the focus of the talks will be issues such as school textbooks, the issue of the cemeteries of the Greek fallen in the second world war and the main issue of the sea.

It is expected that the chief diplomats of the two countries will discuss how to speed up the process of solving this issue, for which the parties have turned to The Hague Court for a solution.

A little information about the sea issue

In October 2020, Albania and Greece decided to turn to international justice to resolve the debate on the delimitation of the maritime space between the two neighboring states. The news was announced at that time during the visit of Nikos Dendias to Tirana.

The contradictions between the parties seem to have emerged when negotiations for an agreement regarding the division of maritime spaces in the Ionian Sea began in 2018, which were suspended in the summer of 2019. 

In 2009, the Constitutional Court (CJK) rejected the Sea Agreement between Albania and Greece. The Convention on the Law of the Sea, adopted at Montego Bay in 1982 and ratified by both neighboring countries, gives ratifying countries the right to extend their territorial waters up to 12 miles. But only if the geographical circumstances allow it.  

Albania and Greece share three spaces in the Ionian Sea: Territorial Sea, Continental Shelf and Exclusive Economic Zone. These last two are related to the use of space and underwater assets, such as the search for gas, oil, etc. For all three of these areas, the two neighboring countries have strategic interests. 

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea clearly states in its 320 articles that each country exercises "full sovereignty and sovereign rights in a clearly defined area, with maritime coordinates, located on an agreed map and accompanied by nautical coordinates for the 3 spaces."

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