Albania; 2nd maritime border agreement with Greece
31/07/2012
Top Channel TV

The Albanian and the Greek Prime Ministers have agreed to reactivate the maritime border agreement.

Secure sources at the Greek Foreign Ministry declared for Top Channel that the activation of the 2009 agreement is in its final phases and will be published within one or two months.

For this was needed the interference of Andonis Samaras, who discussed it with Mr. Berisha during the recent frequent meetings and phone conversations. Berisha promised the Greek homologue that the agreement would be completed shortly, despite the great pressure that the Albanian government has received from, as he called them, extremist forces, such as the Red and Black Alliance and the Socialist Party.

The goal is to complete the agreement before the celebrations of the 100th year of independence, to avoid any possible reaction of the public opinion. According to the same sources, although some items have changed, the agreement doesn’t affect the core of the previous pact which was rejected by the Constitutional Court of Albania. Greece is expected to concede some of the maritime borders, the calculation of which was in disfavor for the Albanians.

Top Channel has learned that the renegotiation was made in a high rank level of the respective ministries, and without the presence of proper experts, which leaves room to suspicions that the Albanian side is still in disfavor. The Albanian part of the negotiation has left outside even the staff of our embassy in Athens, different from he Greek embassy which has increased the pressure among the Albanian politics.

Sources say that the second maritime agreement will be changed in some of its terms, but some essential agreement points about the new borders will be unchanged, leaving to Greece more maritime space, at least more than 200-250 square kilometers in southern Othons, exactly in front of Himara and near Karaburun.

This area is considered very important for the new agreement, after it was approved in these coordinates. It gives to Greece more priority in extracting oil exactly in the area about which experts declared that hides great quantities of oil and gas.

The reserves are considered to be easy to be processed and not only that. With this agreement, Athens becomes a third party in the maritime border agreements with Italy, having the opportunity to renegotiate with Rome their maritime border, although they have settled the borders since 1976. The agreement is seen as very important even for the fact that Greece needs it for establishing its exclusive economic zone with the countries that border it, such as Egypt, Libya and Israel, but especially Turkey.

The US administration has also been involved by advising the Greek government to not establish the maritime borders without negotiating them with the neighbors first