Czech ambassador to Albania dies

TIRANA, Aug – Marketa Fialkova, the Czech ambassador to Tirana, unexpectedly died last week evening in her embassy residency at the age of 55. Fialkova, a former dissident, is said to have been complaining of health problems a few days earlier.
In a letter of condolence to the Czech authorities, Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha praised Fialkova for her work in Albania over the past four years.
“[She] worked with devotion and gave a valuable contribution to strengthening the relationship between our two countries,” Berisha wrote.
Fialkova represented the Czech Republic in Albania from September 2007. She joined the Foreign Ministry in 1990, shortly after the fall of the Czechoslovak communist regime. She was ambassador to Poland in the early 1990s and secretary to president Vaclav Havel in 1995-1997.
After Fialkova signed the Charter 77 human rights manifesto in 1977, she was banned from university for political reasons.
She was an OSCE observer, supervising the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia and Kosovo. She also joined the election observations in Macedonia and Montenegro.