New Relations between Tirana and Pristina

AIM Pristina, December 14, 2000

No less than 88 years since the proclamation of independence of Albania, the prime minister of this country stepped for the first time on the territory of Kosovo. At some other time in the past that would have been the most sensational piece of news, and the streets and squares in Kosovo would have certainly been thronged with thousands of people who would have come out to welcome the head of the government of the "parent" country, as it is considered by Kosovo Albanians. However, the people who once used to gladly freeze in the cold climbing the roofs of their houses and balconies trying to turn their TV antennas in the direction that would enable them to receive the signal from the parent state, accepted the visit of Albanian prime minister Ilir Meta as any other customary visit of a European statesman. It seems that the citizens of Kosovo are overwhelmed by enthusiasm only when Kosovo is visited by the diplomats of great powers especially the Americans.

Mr. Meta has not entered Kosovo in grand style, but he is nevertheless the first who has come through institutional channels. He was officially welcomed by the highest international officials in Kosovo and chief Kosovo Albanian political leaders while his predecessors from the ranks of the regime and the opposition in Albania either paid Kosovo private visits or were forbidden to do so, as former president Sali Berisha...

Be what may, observers claim that with the visit of Mr. Meta ice has melted from the relations between Tirana and Pristina. The ice had accumulated during and immediately after the war in Kosovo. The paradox of this estrangement lay in the fact that Albania, as confirmed so many times by international officials, bore the very difficult burden of the war in Kosovo. More than half a million Kosovo Albanians "tested the brotherly love" during 78 days of NATO air strikes against Serbian targets. The spring 1999 brought the Albanians divided in a few states closer together than ever before. Albania offered logistic support to NATO and it was certainly the main base for supplying Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) with arms. But all that great "brotherly love" had the elements of political calculation as well. The alliance between the rightist parties in Tirana and those in Pristina on the one hand and the alliance between the leftists in Tirana and their like-minded parties in Kosovo were not broken even during the war in Kosovo. The Liberation Army had its bases for training and armament in Albania, but there were also bases of the armed factions headed by persons close to the then Kosovar prime minister in exile Bujar Bukoshi. The authorities in Tirana supported ones against the others depending on daily interest, just as they themselves operated depending on the interests and the support they could get.

However, these alliances were formed immediately after the crumbling down of the Albanian state in spring 1997 when Sali Bersiha was overthrown and the power taken over by the Socialists of Fatos Nano. Ibrahim Rugova as the president of Kosovo at the time and political parties close to his Democratic League of Kosovo had maintained a "cold" attitude towards the successors of the Labour Party led by communist dictator Enver Hoxha. For many political parties in Kosovo the Socialists, no matter how moderate they may be, were nothing but politicians arisen from the party which had for 45 years in a row been turning Albania into the most isolated country in the world. For Ibrahim Rugova Tirana was not either the starting or the terminal point of his visits to the world capitals any more. Not long after that, in the beginning of November 1997, Fatos Nano met with the former president Slobodan Milosevic at the Summit Conference of the countries of South-Eastern Europe on the island of Crete in Greece. Although his men declared that "this was a meeting imposed on Mr. Nano as a condition", the Kosovars have never forgiven him for this "sin"...

The rival party of Mr. Rugova could not forgive Mr. Nano this sin either and that is the reason why a part of it split concerning the stand towards the Albanian government. Known activist Adem Demaqi, the president of the Parliamentary Party of Kosovo at the time, excommunicated a few of his friends from his party because they had met with the Socialists in Tirana...

The year 1999 and the climax of the war in Kosovo coincided with the period of rule of Pandeli Majko who might be the only Socialist Kosovo Albanians feel great respect for. However, Ibrahim Rugova did not draw nearer to Tirana even in that period. At the time he had just come out of Kosovo where, as he claimed, he had been “Milosevic's hostage” for two whole months. He visited the refugees in Macedonia, but failed to do that in Albania. Accused in Albanian media of “treason” because of the meeting with Milosevic during the bombing campaign, he avoided Albania for fear of reactions especially among the leaders of KLA who used Albania as a base for their operations, but also because of the relations with the Socialists in power...

Not even after the end of the conflict did the relations between Tirana and Pristina change and political alliances remained almost unchanged until the visit of premier Meta. Meta met with all the political leaders and claimed in all the meetings that it was “necessary to increase cooperation between Tirana and Pristina”. Meta also stressed that Albania does not wish to look upon Kosovo from a paternal position, but he did not state clearly his stand concerning its political status. He just warned the Kosovars that “democratic Kosovo does not necessarily mean independent Kosovo, just as independent Kosovo does not mean its being democratic”...

Certainly the most interesting Meta's meeting was the one with Ibrahim Rugova. Mr. Meta addressed an official invitation to Rugova to visit Tirana, because as he said “the citizens of Albania expect to hear from Rugova himself the messages addressed to them”. He said that Mr. Rugova was welcomed to come by all the institutions in Albania and its citizens, and in his speech acknowledged Rugova's and his Democratic League's “merits for the ten-year period of winning recognition for the question of Kosovo by the international community”. Mr. Rugova stated that there was and that there had never been an estrangement between himself and Albania, but that “there was a war then”... The meeting of Rugova and Meta was his second meeting with the Socialist leaders of Albania in just two weeks. He had met the Socialist Fatos Nano in the capital of Greece, Athens, where the two participated at the Conference titled “Albanians as Majority and Minority”. These meetings were estimated as a new political dimension opened by the victory of the Socialist Party in Albania and the Democratic League of Kosovo in the past elections.

Analysts in Kosovo claim that this dimension also implies a clear message to the rivals of Ibrahim Rugova. The new stands of the Socialists are a sign of rapprochement with Rugova and at the same time “estrangement” with the Democratic Party of Kosovo and its leader Hashim Thaci. Nevertheless, nobody can explain the real reason for this estrangement. There is simply still plenty of ice in relations between Tirana and Pristina... Perhaps the invitation Ilir Meta has addressed to political leaders to gather in Tirana in order to talk about the “most significant national issues was a formula to mask this estrangement or new recognition of Tirana in the role of the “big brother” who knows when the younger “roguish” brother should be scolded or praised.

AIM Pristina

Besnik BALA