Albania in World War II

One of the issues often raised by Albania, both at the bilateral and international levels, is the so-called “Cham issue.”

At 3 a.m. on the morning of October 28th, 1940, Emanuele Grazzi, the Italian ambassador to Greece, delivered an ultimatum from Benito Mussolini to Prime Minister Ioannis Metaxas. “Il Duce” demanded that Metaxas allow the Italian army free passage to enter and occupy strategic sites in Greece unopposed.

Moreover, they also facing a big problem with minorities. Greece is now indirectly threatening to veto the beginning of Albania's accession negotiations to the European Union.
Altin Meshini is a successful producer of organic cheese in Prmet in southern Albania.

Two violent incidents have been recorded in Greece allegedly linked to the killing of an ethnic Greek, Kostandinos Kacifa, who was shot dead by Albanian police at the weekend.

The remains of four Greek soldiers killed in fighting in World War II were brought up in Albania on Tuesday, after two more were disinterred the previous day.

In early 1941, Adolf Hitler could look at a map of Eastern Europe and think that his plans were progressing nicely. The invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, was coming in a few short months, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria had joined the Tripartite Pact, and Yugoslavia’s government signed on to the same on March 25th, 1941.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has again returned to the vexed issue of the exiled Cham community in a Greek TV interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Rama said it was a perfect Balkanic paradox that Albania and Greece remained "de jure" in a state of war despite signing a treaty of friendship in 1987.

Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias has denied claims by his Albanian counterpart Ditmir Bushati that the two countries submitted a non-paper to the European Union that included a reference to claims by the Cham community in Albania.

"The only reference in the non-paper," Kotzias told Alpha radio on Wednesday, "was that the issue is not negotiable for the Greek state."

Greek Foreign Ministry sources were clear that the ‘matter of existence of Chams’ is completely unfounded, responding to claims made by Albanian Foreign Minister Ditmir Bushati on television that the issue was still alive.

“Albanians of .. Cameria” was the latest irredentist “pipedream” heard in the increasingly tense western Balkans this week, uttered by none other than an Albanian lawmaker who assumed a vice-speaker’s position in that country’s Parliament.

The phrase belongs to one Shpëtim Idrizi, listed as the president of the small nationalist Party for Justice, Integration and Unity.