Posted on 04/08/2015 8:06:55 PM PDT by Dragonfly
(Reuters) - The unification of Albania and Serbia's majority-Albanian former province of Kosovo is "inevitable", whether it happens through membership of the European Union or not, Albania's prime minister said on Tuesday.
The suggestion was denounced in Belgrade, where a senior official accused Tirana's Prime Minister Edi Rama of "banging the war drums" over Kosovo, which many Serbs regard as the cradle of their nation and Orthodox Christian faith.
Serbia and the West are sensitive to any talk of unification of Albania and Kosovo, something Western powers ruled out when they backed Kosovo's secession from Serbia in 2008.
Kosovo and NATO-member Albania have long said they hope to 'unite' under the flag of the EU, where open borders are more freely crossed by people and goods.
But many people in the Balkans, wracked by instability and war in the 1990s after the Cold War ended, are frustrated by what they see as EU reluctance to open its doors to the region.
"The unification of the Albanians of Albania and Kosovo ... is inevitable and unquestionable," Rama said in an interview late on Monday with the Kosovo broadcaster Klan Kosova.
"The question is how it will happen. Will it happen in the context of the EU as a natural process and understood by all, or will it happen as a reaction to EU blindness or laziness."
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
Things could ugly
Maybe Serbia should take it back.
My last name is of Serbian origin and I did a search on it. If it remained as it was from the time my ancestors came here, I found out the most common place in the world for my last name is Kosovo. I’m a Kosovar Serb it seems although I’m made up of many nationalities.
Has anyone talked about what the Tosks think of the idea? After all, Albania is more or less evenly divided between them and the Ghegs, while Kosovo is all Gheg. A greater Albania would probably be inevitably dominated by the Ghegs.
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