TIRANA-SKOPJE: WARM WINDS IN MID WINTER

AIM Tirana, 24 January, 1998

When in September last year foreign minister of Albania Paskal Milo offered his hand in New York to his Macedonian colleague Blagoje Hanzijski, many believed that this would be a prelude of a cautious opening between Albanian and Macedonia. Squeezed into busy diplomatic agendas of the two ministers in the Glass Palace, it passed without much pomp due to the spectacular Albanian-Serbian meeting on the same level. The same happened two months later at the summit conference in Crete, when the meeting of Nano and Milosevic overshadowed the meeting between Nano and Gligorov. Unexpected opening of the dialogue with Belgrade was more intriguing for the media than rapprochement of the already existing relations between Skopje and Tirana. There have been similar gestures between the two neighbouring countries in the past, even stronger and more spectacular. Three years ago when the question of the name cost the Macedonians international recognition, Berisha was the one who was the first to recognize the youngest republic that emerged from former Yugoslavia and opened Albanian ports for it in order to be able to trade which Greece had interrupted with its embargo. Underestimating the crisis concerning the name of Macedonia, Albania agreed to pay the price of estrangement with Athens in order not to lose political support of the West. In a few meetings on the presidential level and the same number of others on lower levels Tirana and Skopje started to express the will for cooperation and every gesture of rapprochement was constantly encouraged by interventions of western diplomacy and at the same time sabotaged by problems of ethnic Albanians in Macedonia. During three years of their relations, a paradox was created - the Albanian-Macedonian agenda was full of extremely opposite gestures.

From the act of official recognition of Skopje to sharp notes of protest against violation of the rights of the Albanians in Macedonia, the gorvernment of president Berisha nevertheless managed to contribute to avoiding of an armed conflict in the south of the Balkans, giving way under strong Euro-American pressure. However, on the other hand, the level of mutual relations remained under pressure and burden of nationalistic prejudice which did not permit looking behind or over the wall of historic divisions. Establishment of the new government after the elections on 29 June 1997 seems to have created premises for the beginning of changes. The crisis Albania had experienced in Ferbruary and March greatly conditioned its attitude to regional crises. If a few years ago Berisha knew how to use the war in Bosnia and the Albanian issue in former Yugoslavia in order to enable his policy to be given adequate weight on the international level, after the end of the Bosnian conflict and political and economic weakening of Tirana after the weeks of riots, Albania became more dependent on international developments and trends. As part of a Euro-American game, weakened Albania could not impose its stand in the region and on the continent. Nowadays Tirana is awaiting international financial intervention in order to find a way out of the crisis, and in such conditions maximalistic aspirations are a luxury which the Albanian state cannot afford.

On the other hand, protagonists at the head of the government changed. The charismatic figure of a leader personified by Berisha was removed, and instead, the figure of a politician open to compromise represented by Nano replaced him. The Albanian prime minister and his team are giving very clear signals for six months already that they intend to proceed with normalization of problematic relations with the northern and northeastern neighbours, accepting in this case the full political cost that such a process implies. Awareness that the "devil" is not so black as he is painted is growing in Tirana and there are plenty of arguments in favour of this. In the course of adoption of a new policy which Nano likes to call "philosophy of Europeization of the Balkans", Albanian politicians have already adopted in general the pragmatism of the thesis that a strong Macedonia with which it is possible to discuss bilateral problems is certainly better than a territory torn by tensions and dominated by foreign influence and whims of the international geopolitics.

In the process of effectuation of this new policy, in just two months, that is, in December 1997 and January 1998, Tirana and Skopje signed 14 bilateral agreements which are aimed at establishing local border cooperation and connections, free flow of people, economy, trade, transportation and judiciary. From abolishment of visas for the local border population all the way to the Eighth Corridor, the signed documents are aimed at intensifying exchange and mutual opening. In the beginning on the level of ministers, and later prime ministers, the two countries have confirmed that a new era in their relations has begun. During the visit of foreign minister of Macedonia to Tirana, his Albanian colleague Milo declared that the two countries had "decided to establish exemplary relations". Technical obstacle of the name of Macedonia did not block signing of the protocol. Parties agreed to use the formulation "Macedonian Government" in the text of the agreement avoiding usage of the term FYROM, as well as the name Republic of Macedonia.

After the visit of the Albanian prime minister to Skopje this month, during which he met with the whole hierarchy of the Macedonian state, the newspaper of the Socialist Party in power wrote that "Nano had melted the ice in Skopje". Such language has never been used before, not even in the previous three years when Albania took sides with Skopje and not Athens. But, despite frequent exchanges and putting signatures on official protocols the two countries must resolve a whole series of problems which would in a different political climate block the process of rapprochement. Right oriented opposition headed by Berisha, but also the Republicans whose leader is the head of the parliamentary committee for foreign policy, declared after Nano's visit to Skopje that the Albanian government made a mistake in key issues which refer to improvement of the status of the Albanians in Macedonia. The Democrats did not hesitate to characterise as "anti-national" the stand of the prime minister expressed during his visit, underlining the fact that he had said nothing about nationally constructive right of the Albanians in Macedonia, about education in Albanian, about participation of the Albanians in the administration and the Albanian army, and generally about "lower level of demands than put to Skopje by the international community concerning the Albanian population over there. Such aspirations which are defended by the Albanian opposition in very sharp language, once again separated the official policy from those of minority political parties which do not miss a single opportunity to accuse the majority "of selling national interests of Albania".

On the other hand, political parties of the Albanians in Macedonia were more cautious. The two greatest parties - that of Democratic Prosperity and Democratic Party of the Albanians - reacted favourably to the visit of Nano to Tetovo and the first meeting of a prime minister from Tirana with these parties in the city dominated by the Albanian population. In Tetovo, Nano declared that the problem of education in Albanian language would soon be solved, and in the city where the first university in mother tongue had been opened, this was good news. Accompanied by prime minister Crvenskovski, Fatos Nano promised the students and politicians that education would be the fierst item on the agenda in discussions and future contacts and that "things are moving quickly" in that direction.

Coming to life of the Albanian-Macedonian relations is the beginning of the end of one of the Balkan crises, with no doubt not the deepest though. Regularly overshadowed by the Gordian knot - Kosovo, the Albanian-Macedonian problem seems to be going towards slow, but stable resolution. The future of bilateral relations will also be determined by the power of political pressure which the West will exert on these governments in order to avoid a new deviation from the right track of the just initiated dialogue.

AIM Tirana

Skender MINXHOZI