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By LLAZAR SEMINI, Related Press
TIRANA, Albania (AP) — Balkan neighbors Albania and Greece stated Tuesday they’ve agreed to refer a dispute over their maritime borders within the Ionian Sea to the Netherlands-based Worldwide Court docket of Justice.
The joint determination was introduced throughout a go to to Tirana by Greek Overseas Minister Nikos Dendias.
“We’ve agreed to move on this case to worldwide justice,” Dendias stated after a gathering with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.
Rama stated that taking the disagreement to the court docket in The Hague would “(be part of) the dots based mostly on the (court docket’s) experience and worldwide maritime legislation.”
Greece has just lately launched a push to delimitate its sea borders with neighboring nations, amid excessive tensions — that threatened to set off a navy confrontation — with jap neighbor Turkey over offshore power exploitation rights within the Japanese Mediterranean. Athens has to this point signed offers with Italy and Egypt.
Tirana and Athens inked a deal to outline their maritime border in 2009, when Albania was ruled by the Democratic occasion that’s now in opposition.
However Rama’s Socialists, then in opposition, had challenged the settlement in court docket, claiming it price the nation 225 sq. kilometers (86 sq. miles) of territorial waters.
Albania’s Constitutional Court docket nullified the settlement 9 months later, deeming it unconstitutional.
“That subject is not going to be at our discretion, nor that of the Greek facet, however of worldwide justice and in that approach we will deal with our financial (and) regional cooperation,” Rama stated.
Relations between Greece and post-communist Albania have been at instances uneasy, largely over minority rights, and Albania’s repealing of the 2009 Ionian Sea settlement was one other subject of rigidity.
Dendias stated Tuesday that Greece would quickly nullify the formal state of conflict nonetheless in place between the 2 nations since World Conflict II, when fascist Italian forces invaded Greece by the Albanian border earlier than being compelled to retreat deep into Albania.
European Union member Greece has lengthy backed Albania’s want to finally be part of the 27-nation bloc.
The governments in Tirana and Athens have stated that the ethnic Greek minority in Albania and the big inhabitants in Greece of Albanians who emigrated there after the autumn of communism function bridges linking the 2 nations.
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