President Topi promotes Albania at UNESCO summit

TIRANA, June 3 – President Bamir Topi was among participants from 11 southeastern European countries to discuss on how to boost ties in the cultural and historic heritage.
In a joint declaration, adopted in Bosnia’s historic southern town of Mostar, top officials from the 11 countries agreed to protect theircultural heritage as an “important basis for understanding and more intensive cooperation between our countries.”
Topi was joined by other top officials from Bosnia (chairman of Bosnia’s joint presidency Bakir Izetbegovic), Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Macedonia’s president Gjorgje Ivanov, Montenegro’s president Filip Vujanovic, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia and Turkey who were committed to strengthening regional cooperation through cultural exchanges, joint programmes and improved local legislation on the issue.
They also said they would notably boost an exchange of information among young people with the aim of “honoring pluralism, the basis for harmony in our multi-cultural societies.”
Topi said that, “In our ancient and current history, the religious inheritance has played an active role in the strengthening of state, cultural or ethnic identities, as well as there have also been periods when the religious diversity has been used to lead to conflicts and bloody wars.” He added that Albania “has a specific feature of religious constitution; we have five religious communities that live in complete harmony for centuries with each other.”
Topi also said that the traditions and the religious exchanges have been meeting points that often appear also in the existence of similar religious symbolic, similar musical values, rites or other indicators of religious inheritance.
Topi urged participants to be held accountable “as political decision makers of the region of Southeast Europe, to refuse every negative tentative or behavior through dialogue and the model of religious or political co-existence, to give an excellent example for the world, being the best image of overcoming differences that separated us in the past, through acceptance of each other, respect for the different and most importantly, knowing and embracing the similar of all the peoples of our region.”
He urged neighbors in the region to continue “to construct stable bridges of communication and faith in every area, including also the matters of religious faith and cultural dialogue. The bitter past teaches us that politics has a crucial role in the orientation of their peoples and the establishment of relations with neighbors.”
“We want and desire to be together in Brussels, but first of all we should do more to live together in respect and harmony within the region, as a part of the southeastern European community.”
Topi did not forget to lobby for Kosovo, urging participants to include Prishtina in such meetings all over the region.