Albania suggests sharing presidency with Kosovo

Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama says his country and Kosovo — already diplomatically and ethnically tied — could have a single president as a sign of further unity.

“Why not a single president, as a symbol of national unity?” Rama suggested in an address on Sunday to Kosovo’s parliament on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Kosovo’s independence.

He acknowledged that the prospect of one president presiding over both countries was not likely to happen anytime soon despite the fact that Albania and Kosovo already share diplomatic missions around the world and are both pre-dominantly Albanian and Muslim.

However, Rama said that, “History tells us that it is not impossible for a dream to come true.”

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008. Currently, 112 out of the 193 UN states recognize Kosovo’s independence from Serbia.

But efforts to normalize ties between Kosovo and Serbia have failed, and the latter claims Kosovo as part of its territory. Belgrade says it will never recognize Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence.

Rama said he had a vision of a future in which “Albanians and Serbians will co-exist... like two countries with good neighborly relations that are an integral part of the European Union.”

Serbia, which is remembered by the world community for its notorious war criminal leaders such as Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, who were convicted as mass murderers, has rebuffed Rama’s idea of co-existence, blaming Tirana for wanting to build a “Greater Albania” with Kosovo.

SS