Tirana wants remains of Mother Teresa, exiled King Zog to be returned

TIRANA, Oct 10 – Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha came out in a surprise news conference last week declaring that Tirana wants the remains of Nobel Peace laureate Mother Teresa and the only post-independence monarch to be returned to the country.
Mother Teresa’s remains are in India and King Ahmet Zog’s in France.
Zog was the small Balkan country’s first – and only – post-independence monarch, reigning from 1928 to 1939, when he fled after Albania’s occupation by fascist Italy. He died in France in 1961, and is buried at the Thiais Cemetery near Paris.
“The Albanian government took this decision recognizing Ahmet Zog … as one of the greatest, most distinguished personalities with a major contribution in the history of the Albanian nation,” Berisha told a news conference.
Berisha said the king’s remains would be re-interred at the former Albanian royal family’s private cemetery near Tirana, without specifying when that was expected.
There has been no reaction from the royal family or French authorities.
Albania’s communist rulers abolished the monarchy in 1946, but the exiled royals insisted that Zog’s son, Leka Zog I, was the country’s legitimate ruler.
Since the fall of Communism in 1991, Albania has been a parliamentary republic. A small royalist party is allied to Berisha’s 16-party governing Democrats’ coalition.
Albanians voted against restoring the monarchy in a 1997 referendum.
Berisha said that his government has asked India for the Roman Catholic nun’s remains to be returned by the 100th anniversary of her birth in August.
He said that Albania has started negotiations with India’s government, which “will be intensified this year.”
The Missionaries of Charity (MoC) have said that it has not received any request from any quarter for transfer of Mother Teresa’s mortal remains to Albania, the country of her origin.
“Unless we receive any specific request from any quarter in this regard, we cannot comment,” Salesian priest Father Robin Gomes, who ministers to the nuns in the Auxiliam parish, said.
He said the MoC, headquarters of Mother’s global order, would not probably agree to any request for transfer of her remains outside of her tomb which is situated in a room on the ground floor of the Mother House.
“It will not be fair to remove her remains from there,” Father Gomes said.
The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Albania have been engaged in a dispute over the national identity of Mother Teresa, who was born in Macedonia to an ethnic Albanian family. She went to Calcutta, India, in 1929, and dedicated herself to the service of the poor and infirm, receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
After her death in 1997 she was buried in Calcutta and Pope John Paul II beatified her in 2003. Albania’s main airport outside the capital, Tirana, is named after Mother Teresa.
According to Father Gomes, although the Nobel laureate is an Albanian, her order comprises priests and nuns from almost all countries and hence the request is not tenable.
He also observed that since she was an Indian citizen, the central government would not agree to the request for transfer outside of the country.