TIRANA, July 26 – Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has made it clear Tirana supports Macedonia’s NATO bid despite rising ethnic tensions.
In an interview with a Macedonian television channel, Rama said Albania would not veto a bid by Skopje to join the alliance over worries of how the Slavic majority treats the country’s ethnic Albanian population.
Albania has been a NATO members since 2008. Macedonia’s bid has been blocked by Greece over the country’s name dispute.
Tension has been high in neighboring Macedonia recently where there have been two murders of ethnic Albanian politicians.
Rama also repeated the importance of the Ohrid Agreement for the neighboring country, which was signed to give an end to the ethnic hostilities in 2001.
“The last document in the Wales Summit … underlines the need of Macedonia to implement the Ohrid Agreement as a basis for coexistence, harmony, peace and cooperation between Albanians and Macedonians, as well as a basis for strengthening Macedonia in order for it to be stable and to develop,” Rama said in an interview with Telma television station in Macedonia.
The prime minister also called for “a transparent and independent” investigation into a gun-battle between police and local insurgents that happened earlier this year in Kumanovo, a northern Macedonian city situated 20 km from the country’s capital Skopje, where eight policemen and 10 armed insurgents were killed, while 37 officers were wounded.
