Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said the country is expanding its territorial sea waters in the Ionian Sea from 6 to 12 nautical miles. This is reported by AMNA.
According to the report, the head of government claims that Greece is taking such a step, “exercising the indisputable sovereign right that it has in accordance with Article 3 of the International Maritime Law.”
Speaking in parliament on the ratification of two separate deals that Greece signed with Italy and Egypt, he said that “this is a right that Greece reserves in the future to exercise also in other sea areas, and our neighbors have already realized.”
Mitsotakis said that the Greek Foreign Minister had already informed his colleagues from Italy and Albania of this decision and that he would soon visit Tirana to discuss with the Albanian government the final resolution on the delimitation of the maritime zones. Both Greece and Albania have signed a treaty on international maritime law.
According to the Greek prime minister, the agreement with Italy “is a special milestone: this is the first one signed by Greece, the first that sets the boundaries of its exclusive economic zone EEZ with a neighboring country.”
On the other hand, the agreement with Egypt has been pending since the 1980s, he noted. “Bilateral negotiations started in 2005, they continued to rotate through 14 consecutive rounds of negotiations, and it seemed that there would be no end in sight.”
Mitsotakis noted that the only unresolved problem that Greece recognizes with Turkey is the delimitation of the sea zones in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. According to him, the path to negotiations on this with Turkey is open as long as Ankara does not conduct provocative behavior.
We will remind you, earlier Greece criticized the intention of Turkey to conduct exploration of energy resources in the Eastern Mediterranean, which, according to Athens, affects the Greek continental shelf.
