TIRANA, Oct. 23 – Albania’s deputy prime minister, Niko Peleshi, said this week the current political crisis in Kosovo, which has the parliament at standstill, is an internal affair of the neighboring country and Tirana would not interfere.
“We naturally respect the decisionmaking of Kosovo as a state,” Peleshi told reporters.
The Albanian government has said Kosovo needs to solve its problems in a calm and democratic manner.
The comments came after Visar Ymeri, leader of the opposition nationalist Self-Determination movement, also known as Vetevendosje or VV, openly criticized the Tirana government for not opposing deals Prishtina has reached with Serbia and Montenegro that VV and other opposition parties believe go against Kosovo’s national interests.
“I believe [Tirana] should have had a public stand that would make aware of such a possible danger coming to Kosovo from Zajednica, because when talking of Kosovo we are talking for a part of the Albanian nation and naturally the Albanian governments should not be indifferent to what is happening to the other side of the border,” Ymeri said at a talk show on Ora News television.
“Zajednica” refers to a union of Serb-dominated municipalities which are to be given greater rights under a new deal between Prishtina and Belgrade. It is fiercely opposed by VV, whose chief goal is to unite Albania and majority-ethnic Albanian Kosovo into one state through referendums in both countries.
Kosovo’s opposition has warned the government against holding another parliamentary session unless it backtracks from deals with Serbia over the municipalities and Montenegro over a border agreement.
Kosovo President Atifete Jahjaga held separate meetings with the political leaders. But she failed to achieve an agreement to at least hold a round table.
Opposition leaders said they would sit at a round table only if the government backtracked from the deals.
In recent parliamentary sessions, opposition members have set off tear gas inside the chamber and thrown eggs at the prime minister to distrubt a vote on the agreements.
Opposition leaders said they will make it “impossible” to implement the deals with Serbia to give more powers to Serb-dominated areas in Kosovo and with Montenegro on border demarcation.
The government says the opposition is trying to come to power through non-democratic means.
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008, a move not recognized by Serbia.
Tirana recognizes Prishtina’s independence, as does most of the developed world.
Neither the Tirana nor the Prishtina government support VV’s vision of joining the two countries into one.
