Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama is in Athens expected to meet with his Greek counterpart Kyriakos Mitsotakis, with whom a working dinner is planned, it is reported on Tuesday.
Mr. Rama is in the Greek capital to attend the annual conference organized by the Greek Government and The Economist magazine. The meeting with Prime Minister Mitsotakis comes at a time when Greece has stated that it intends to expand its territorial waters in the Ionian Sea to 12 miles.
Such a decision has reopened old debates over an agreement between Greece and Albania on defining maritime borders and exclusive economic zones. Prime Minister Rama has recently spoken about the right of Greece to expand its territorial sea waters recognized by international conventions, specifying that it has nothing to do with the definition of the maritime border between the two countries.
Following the Constitutional Court’s rejection of the agreement signed in 2009, Tirana and Athens resumed talks two years ago, as part of a package of pending issues between the two countries.
Prime Minister Rama has stated that talks on the sea issue have been suspended after the government of Prime Minister Mitsotakis came to power. This was confirmed a few days ago by the head of the Greek government, while announcing that the sea issue will be the topic of Tuesday’s talks with Mr. Rama.
The visit of the Albanian Prime Minister to Athens was preceded on the weekend by a meeting he had in Turkey with President Tayp Erdogan, whose country is involved in an open clash with Greece, precisely for the maritime waters that the two countries share with each other./argumentum.al
