Cotric: Albania has no law to regulate status of Serbs

BELGRADE - Albania does not have a law on national minorities and this is why Serbs and other minorities in the country are not recognised as a national minority, Aleksandar Cotric of the Serbian parliament Committee on the Diaspora and Serbs in the Region said on Friday.

This is the reason why all minorities in Albania are experiencing major problems with realisation of their rights, said Cotric who recently visited Albania as a member of the Serbian parliament delegation.

He noted that members of national minorities in Albania cannot attend schools and get information in their mother tongue, nor are they able to establish institutional cooperation with their mother country.

If the Tirana government adopted a law on national minorities, it would make it possible for Serbia to close an intergovernmental agreement on national minority protection with Albania, Cotric said.

He noted that Serbs in Albania are facing major problems, and noted that the Tirana government has even banned the course of the Serbian language which was organised in Fiera, central Albania, for the past five years, as the Albanian authorities decided that the course does not meet certain requirements envisaged in the law.

Cotric noted that during their stay in Tirana, the three-member delegation of the Serbian parliament Committee on the Diaspora had a chance to meet with the Albanian minister of education and sport and discuss the search for a solution to this problem.

We asked for the school in Fiera to be allowed to organise the course of the Serbian language after regular classes and for the students to be allowed to attend the lessons of Serbian in the school instead of having to meet in a private house as was the case so...

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