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Albanian Times, 96-05-17
Albanian Times
May 17, 1996
CONTENTS
[01] Albanian Foreign Minister to Visit Greece
[02] Visiting German Official Supports Democrats Record
[03] Opposition Charges Disruption of Rally
[04] Government Promises Rosy Future for Colleges
[05] Albania, Macedonia Seek to Deepen Energy Cooperation
[06] Macedonia Asks Extension of UN Mandate
[01] Albanian Foreign Minister to Visit Greece
ATHENS, May 16 - Albanian Foreign Minister Alfred Serreqi will
sign bilateral agreements with his Greek counterpart Theodoros Pangalos
during a one-day visit to Athens on Friday, the Greek foreign ministry said on
Thursday. The agreements signal a step towards closer cooperation between the
two Balkan neighbours after years of tension. One concerns the creation of
consulates in the northern Greek city of Salonika and the southern Albanian
city of Korce. The other legalises hundreds of thousands of illegal Albanians
in Greece as seasonal workers, the ministry said in a statement. The two
countries settled some mutual grievances during a visit by Pangalos to Tirana
in March, when they agreed to find a way to legalise Albanian workers in
Greece and open schools for the ethnic Greek minority in Albania. (Albanian
Times/Reuters)
[02] Visiting German Official Supports Democrats Record
TIRANA, May 16 - A senior German politician said on Thursday he
hoped Albanians would not vote for what he considered a return to the former
communist system and he backed the ruling Democratic Party in the May 26
elections. Klaus Buehler, an official of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl's
conservative party at the Council of Europe, said only a political group like
President Sali Berisha's Democrats could ensure democratic reforms in Albania.
``I doubt that another force, which might have been responsible for a past,
could develop these reforms with the same speed as this new democratic
force,'' he said. Buehler's remarks were a thinly veiled jab at the
opposition Socialists, the reformed heirs of dictator Enver Hoxha's communist
party which ruled Albania for over four decades.
``I cannot imagine that people who have experienced what socialism did
to
Albania would turn back in that direction again,'' Buehler said. Buehler said
people should not to be disillusioned by the hardships of
transition to democracy and a market economy. ``The period of transition is
the most critical as all old structures have collapsed and a completely new
construction must be built,'' he said. Buehler is the most recent of a series
of European conservatives to support the Democrats. Michel Pericard, the
parliamentary head of France's ruling Rally for the
Republic (RPR) party, visited Albania earlier this month to throw his party's
weight behind Berisha's party. The Helsinki Committee human rights group said
in May that such visits meddled in Albania's election campaign and violated
the electoral law. But senior Democratic Party official Albert Brojka shrugged
off the claims. ``It is not against the electoral law if (European)
representatives...express their support for Albania's achievements during
these four years under the leadership of the Democratic Party,'' Brojka said.
(Courtesy of Reuters)
[03] Opposition Charges Disruption of Rally
TIRANA, May 16 - Officials of the Albanian opposition Democratic Alleance
accused police of intimidating party's supporters and disrupting their
campaign activities. In a news conference in Tirana, Neritan Ceka, President
of the Democratic Alleance, said police in the district of Lushnje Wednesday
intervened to disrupt a rally of his party and beat up a party candidate
running for the May 26 national elections. A police official in Divjake
though acknowledged an incident occurred, said the rally was illegal and the
incident was provoked by what he described as hooligans among Ceka's
supporters. The Socialist Party has also complained of similar incidents but
the accusations were rejected by government officials. (Albanian Times)
[04] Government Promises Rosy Future for Colleges
TIRANA, May 16 - Albanian government officials have promised an increase in
the number of students to be admitted by universities, in an apparent attempt
to attract larger numbers of Albanian youths, whose vote could be decisive in
the May 26 elections. An Education Ministry official said Thursday the
nation's universities will accept this school year 25 per cent more youths
than in the previous year. A government decision also provides for doubling
the number of students within four years. Priority will be given to remote
districts of Albania, whose youth had no chances to pursue college education
under the communist regime, as the official put it. (Albanian Times)
[05] Albania, Macedonia Seek to Deepen Energy Cooperation
TIRANA, May 16 - A Macedonian delegation has expressed readiness to increase
economic cooperation with Albania in the field of energy resources. The
delegation headed by Macedonia's vice minister of economy held discussions in
Tirana with the Albanian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Abdyl Xhaja.
Land-locked Macedonia has been looking to Albania as an increasingly
important economic partner to help relieve its energy problems. The delegation
thanked Albanian officials for supplying fuel to Macedonia during what they
described as a difficult period for Skopje. Both sides exchanged ideas on
purchasing Albanian coal and other energy resources. (Albanian Times)
[06] Macedonia Asks Extension of UN Mandate
SKOPJE, May 16 - The Macedonian government has requested that the U.N.
military mission in Macedonia be extended for a year to ensure that Balkan
tensions do not spark a conflict there, a pro-government daily said Thursday.
In a letter to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
Macedonian Foreign Minister Ljubomir Frckovski noted troubles implementing the
civilian part of the peace deal for Bosnia, another republic of the old
Yugoslav federation. Nova Makedonija, which published the letter, also cited a
possible escalation of tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Serbia's
Kosovo province which borders Macedonia, and between neighboring Greece and
Turkey. The United Nations made its first preventive deployment of troops in
December 1992 to prevent a spillover of the Bosnian conflict into Macedonia.
The deployment of about 1,000 U.N. soldiers about half of them Americans has
been regularly extended. The current mandate expires May 31. (Albanian
Times/AP)
This material was reprinted with permission of AlbAmerica Trade & Consulting
International. For more information on ATCI and the Albanian Times, please
write to AlbaTimes@aol.com
Copyright © ATCI, 1996
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