TIRANA, July 1 – Albania has condemned what it calls repeated meddling into its home affairs by neighboring Greece after a reaction by the Greek foreign ministry over a violent incident in the municipal council of Himara town, southern Albania, allegedly involving Greek minority citizens.
“We express regret that neighboring Greece is looking to instrumentalize indecent acts by some individuals in Himara with the goal of including them in issues of respect for Greek minority rights in Albania,” said the Albanian foreign ministry, adding that local Albanian authorities were investigating into the incident.
“The reaction by the Greek foreign ministry is repeated meddling in Albania’s internal state affairs and runs counter to Greece’s commitment for good neighborly relations,” said the Albanian foreign ministry in a statement, denouncing Greece’s paternalist claims over Himara and efforts to describe it as a minority area.
“Continuous efforts to instrumentalize every individual or collective discontent target distorting the reality of excellent coexistence between the Albanian population and the Greek minority which enjoys full rights based on domestic legislation and international conventions,” said the Albanian ministry.
Thursday’s Himara municipal council meeting was marred by acts of violence against local inhabitants who had gathered at municipality building worried over their properties’ future which could be affected by the municipality’s new regulatory plans. Local inhabitants, who were reportedly assaulted by some outsiders, fear they could lose their property over tourism development plans.
Himara, lying on Albania’s southern Riviera, boasts some of the country’s best rocky and sandy beaches.
Earlier on Thursday, Greece’s foreign ministry condemned “the unacceptable incidents of violence that took place during the meeting of the Himara municipal council.”
“We call on the Albanian government to meet its international and European obligations, as well as the demands imposed by modern rule of law, and to honor its commitments to the Greek national minority, ensuring the protection of all of the rights of the members of the Greek national minority, including, certainly, property rights,” said the Greek foreign ministry.
Albania’s 2011 population census showed there were some 24,000 Greek minority citizens living in Albania, mostly in the southern part of the country, accounting for 0.9 percent of the total population, figures which Greek minority representatives oppose as too low.
Albania and Greece have several hot issues to resolve including the maritime border, a state of war law Greece has with Albania since WWII, and the issue of Cham Albanians who were expelled and stripped of their citizenship and property in northern Greece at the end of World War II under accusations that they cooperated with invading Italian and German forces.
Some 500,000 Albanian live and work in Greece, the country’s second largest trading partner. Greece is the top foreign investor in Albania where its companies are present in almost every sector of the Albanian economy, including banking, telecommunication, construction, energy and health.
