Greek FM to Visit Egypt on June 18 for Talks on Maritime Border Deal

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias is set to visit Egypt on June 18 to resume talks with Egyptian officials on demarcating maritime boundaries between the two countries.

Dendias revealed the plan speaking to ANT1 TV, just a couple of hours after he signed a historical agreement with his Italian counterpart Luigi Di Maio.

The agreement on maritime boundaries between Greece and Italy established an Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) between the two countries and resolved long-standing issues over fishing rights in the Ionian Sea.

The agreement on maritime boundaries is the first Greece signed with a neighboring country and opens the way for further agreements with Albania, Egypt and Cyprus.

An EEZ agreement with Egypt could be “partial.”

Such an agreement with Turkey, though, to which Greece shares  seems impossible.

Greek and Italian foreign ministers's meeting

Greece and Italy signed an agreement on maritime boundaries on Tuesday, establishing an exclusive economic zone between the two countries and resolving longstanding issues over fishing rights in the Ionian Sea.

The deal, signed during a visit by Italian foreign minister Luigi Di Maio, follows months of tension over natural resources in the Eastern Mediterranean region, where Turkey, Greece and Cyprus have been caught in a complex diplomatic standoff.

The deal with Italy had irritated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Dendias said adding that “Italy has fully adopted an interpretation of international law as understood by Greece.”

He stressed that “Turkey is alone in insisting on this one-dimensional view that islands have neither a continental shelf nor an EEZ.”

Greece and Turkey are at odds over various decades-old issues ranging from mineral rights in the Aegean Sea to ethnically split Cyprus.

Italy and Greece are already partners in the EastMed gas pipeline project intended to transport 10 billion cubic meters of gas per year from offshore reserves in the eastern Mediterranean to Greece, Italy and other southeastern European countries.

The two ministers also discussed tourism and the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Di Maio said he is optimistic that Italian tourists would be allowed in without quarantine restrictions when Greece opens its borders on June 15.