TIRANA, May 28 – Foreign ministers and senior diplomats from several Balkan countries – many with troubled relations – met last Friday in Tirana to work together and advance their joint bids to join the European Union.
The meeting took place ahead of a landmark visit to Tirana by Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, the first to Albania by a Serbian prime minister.
Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, who attended the Tirana summit, said the visit would boost regional stability.
“Last year’s visit by [Albanian] Prime Minister Edi Rama to Belgrade was very fruitful. The visit of Prime Minister Vucic will be of importance for both countries and for Balkan stability,” he said.
Friday’s meeting brought together representatives of countries that have long had troubled relations in the volatile region: Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Albanian Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati said the political crisis and ethnic tensions in neighboring Macedonia could undermine other Balkan nations’ bids for accession to the 28-nation European Union, the world’s largest trading bloc.
“One country’s security is inseparable from our joint security … It’s a threat to the region’s EU integration,” he said.
Macedonia is engulfed in one of its deepest political crises since gaining independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Adding to the tensions, a shootout in the northern city of Kumanovo this month between police and suspected ethnic Albanian militants left 18 dead.
Edi Rama, the Albanian prime minister, warned earlier this month that Macedonia’s bid to join NATO would fail unless it improves its record on respecting the rights of the country’s ethnic Albanian population. Rama clarified at a press conference later that he did not mean Albania, as a NATO member, would veto the bid.
The talks were part of a series of meetings organized as part of Albania’s presidency of the South-East European Cooperation Process, a regional grouping of 13 Balkan nations set up to promote cooperation. The group’s presidents and prime ministers met in Tirana this week.
