Ilir Meta

With Grexit now slowly receding in the rear view mirror, Greece’s radical leftist government is returning to more normal international contacts, as Greek FM Nikos Kotzias begins a tour of Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina this week.

On Tuesday, Kotzias will head to Pristina, where he will be received by Kosovo PM Isa Mustafa and his counterpart  Hashim Thaci.

Four officials and five owners and employees of pharmacies accused of stealing 56 million leks (400,000 euro) have been arrested in recent days as the Albanian government faces its biggest corruption scandal since it came to power 18 months ago.

Two similar cases involving suspected fraud of several million euros are also currently under investigation.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic and his Albanian counterpart Edi Rama agreed to disagree on Kosovo and sought closer cooperation between their countries.

This happened at the meeting of the two leaders on Wednesday, which is part of the two-day visit of Vucic to Tirana, Tanjug news agency reports.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic met with Albanian Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta in Tirana Wednesday to discuss relations between the two countries.

They also spoke about "ways to improve economic cooperation, including establishing direct flights between Belgrade and Tirana," Tanjug reported.

The main political parties in Albania officially started electoral campaigns on Saturday for the next local elections, but the first days of the campaign were marred by claims of irregularities.

On Saturday, Zef Hila, the opposition Democratic Party candidate for the municipality of Vau i Dejes, alleged that he was subjected to harassment by police officers.

Parties in Albania condemned a man who threw a chair amid a crowd attending a Democratic Party rally in Kolonja, in southeast Albania on Wednesday, injuring a 63-year-old.

The chairman of the Democratic Party and current Mayor of Tirana, Lulzim Basha, was also at the rally where the local candidate for mayor was being presented.

Supporters of Albania's opposition centre-right Democrats plan to gather on Thursday in front of the government office in Tirana amid allegations of a murder plot involving the speaker of parliament, Ilir Meta.

The former Socialist Party MP who last week accused the Speaker of Parliament, Ilir Meta, of plotting his murder on Thursday said he learned of the plot after the assassin repented and told him the details.

Tom Doshi said the assassin told him that Meta had paid him 500,000 euro to kill him and an opposition Democratic Party MP, Mhill Fufi.

BELGRADE/TIRANA - Serbia and Albania are ready to build friendly relations and cooperate in the regional framework so as to ensure stability and prosperity in the Western Balkans, it was stated at Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic's meetings with Albanian President Bujar Nishani and Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta.

BELGRADE/TIRANA - Serbian Parliament Speaker Maja Gojkovic is on a two-day visit to Albania as from Tuesday, where she will meet with Albanian President Bujar Nishani, Parliament Speaker Ilir Meta and Prime Minister Edi Rama.

This is the first visit by a parliament speaker in the history of relations between the two countries, the Serbian parliament said in a release.