TIRANA, July 15 – Albania and Greece have agreed to put together a group of experts that will reassess the issue of the maritime border between the two countries, the first step in a series of lingering issues the two countries need to address.
The agreement of a technical reassessment of the border agreement came during a visit to Tirana by Greek Foreign Minister Nikolaos Kotzias.
A new agreement on the joint maritime border has proven controversial after a previous 2009 deal was voided by the Albanian Constitutional Court. Many Albanians protested the agreement they believed gave too much maritime territory in the Ionian to Greece. However, both countries want the official border in place as soon as possible so they can use the oil reserves believed to be in the area.
In a joint press conference, the two countries’ foreign ministers said there is a mutual will to solve the issue either through a bilateral agreement or through arbitration based on international laws.
“Problems exist to be solved,” Kotzias said. “Exchange of visits are big steps of friendship for building trust.”
Kotzias said his country’s financial crisis would be resolved soon, and that he knows Albanians are watching events closely as it affects hundreds of thousands of Albanian migrants that reside in Greece.
Kotzias was in Tirana Wednesday as part of his Balkan tour taking him to Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia.
In addition to his Albanian counterpart, Kotzias also met Prime Minister Edi Rama and President Bujar Nishani.
After a cool period with few or no exchanges in official visits between Albania and Greece, Kotzias’ visit marked a warming of relations, according to experts in international relations, as officials from both sides vied to focus on what the countries have in common rather than on what divides them.
Kotzias reassured Albanian leaders that Greece is Tirana’s ally when it comes to Albania’s EU bid and said as far as Athens is concerned there is no pending issue relating to a Greek law that keeps a state of war with Albania on paper since the Italian invasion of Greece through occupied Albania in WWII. The Greek government voided the law in 1987, but the decision was never decreed by the then-President Christos Sarxetakis, leaving an awkward WWII-era law standing between the two nations that also have friendship agreements in place.
The two governments reached a memorandum of understanding for further deepening their cooperation and other agreements on agriculture and tourism were signed during the visit.
Kotzias also visited Kosovo, which Tirana hoped Athens will soon recognize as an independent state.
Albanian leaders have hailed Athens efforts to help EU integration of the Balkans, starting with the Thessaloniki summit in 2003, which started the official path for all Western Balkan countries’ efforts to join the EU.
Once the perfect example about what is possible in the Balkans, a Greece in deep financial crisis today, however, is seen with a lot of worry in the region as a sign of a slowing integration process, experts say.
