Serbian ambassador in Albania given demarche

Serbian ambassador in Albania given demarche

TIRANA -- Serbian Ambassador in Tirana Miroljub Zarić says the Albanian Foreign Ministry handed him a strong protest in writing about the football match incident.

The European championship qualifier played in Belgrade on Tuesday between Serbia and Albania was abandoned when a drone with a map of a so-called Greater Albania, expanded to include parts of Serbia, Greece, Macedonia and Montenegro, was flown above the pitch.

For this reason, the Serbian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday summoned the Albanian ambassador in Belgrade and handed him a strongly worded demarche. The Albanian diplomat later said he read it "in amazement."

The website of the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs now says that it "strongly rejects political slander that key Serbian leaders expressed against the Albanian people and the Albanian state."

It is said that the statements of senior Serbian officials are "opposed to the basic ethics of diplomatic relations and reciprocal behavior, restraint and respect between sovereign states." Moreover, they "do not reflect the aspirations of a candidate country for EU membership."

The statement invited the leaders of Serbia to demonstrate maturity by condemning "the anti-Albanian incidents" that the ministry said "occurred before, during and after a football match between Serbia and Albania."

An example of this is mentioned as "keeping Albanian journalists and entrepreneurs who followed the Albanian team at the Belgrade airport, burning the Albanian flag in the stadium, the forty-minute chants about the killing of Albanians and pathological violence against the Albanian national team."

"Old and present...