The United States on Friday denounced recent “nationalist rhetoric” by Albanian political leaders which has worried neighbouring countries with a strong Albanian minority in ethnically fragile Balkan region.
“Let me be absolutely clear: The United States of America does not support the redrawing of national borders in the Balkan region,” US ambassador to Albania Alexander Arvizu said at a regional conference in Tirana.
“Any efforts to do so are counterproductive and destabilising,” he added.
Last month, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha irked his country’s neighbours when he spoke of “the Albanians from all Albanian lands”, referring to ethnic Albanian populations in towns and regions of Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro.
Although his office later explained that he did not express “any territorial claim to our neighbours”, Macedonian President Gjorgje Ivanov and Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos both cancelled their plans to attend celebrations of 100 years of Albania’s independence.
Earlier this month, Berisha announced that Albania would grant citizenship to “all Albanians wherever they live”.
Berisha said there was “an Albanophobia that would disappear only in the process of unification of Albanians … all united within Europe.”
But Arvizu warned that “talk of an illusory ‘Greater Albania’ is a distraction from the very real problems that Albania faces today.”
Such rhetoric “undermines the progress achieved in regional stability and peace, and movement towards European integration,” he said.
Arvizu urged political parties in Albania and their leaders to “focus on what they claim is important: Euro-Atlantic integration.”
Albania has been mired in crisis since the Socialist opposition accused Berisha’s Democrats of electoral fraud following June 2009 legislative polls.
The country of 2.8 million inhabitants applied for EU candidate status in 2009, but Brussels has already twice refused to grant it because political infighting has blocked key reforms including anti-corruption efforts.
US denounces Albania's 'nationalist rhetoric'
