Greece asks EU nations to halt military exports to Turkey

Balkan neighbors Albania and Greece said Tuesday they have agreed to refer a dispute over their maritime borders in the Ionian Sea to the Netherlands-based International Court of Justice.

The joint decision was announced during a visit to Tirana by Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias.

Greece has recently launched a push to delimitate its sea borders with neighboring countries, amid high tensions — that threatened to trigger a military confrontation — with eastern neighbor Turkey over offshore energy exploitation rights in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Athens has so far signed deals with Italy and Egypt.

Relations between Greece and post-communist Albania have been at times uneasy, largely over minority rights, and Albania's repealing of the 2009 Ionian Sea agreement was another field of tension.

Dendias also said he has written to the EU's enlargement commissioner Oliver Varhelyi to say Turkey is violating its customs union with the bloc.