Albania–Serbia relations

"These elections are of national importance," he said.

With just 6,602 voters, Medvedja should be a backwater. But its importance lies in its proximity to the former Serbian province of Kosovo and its role in an ethnic Albanian guerrilla insurgency in southern Serbia in 2000-2001.

As the driver collects the IDs, he passes a woman with a persistent cough and asks in Albanian: "A je mire?" - Are you OK? After seeing her name, he later returns her ID to her saying respectfully in Serbian: "Izvolite gospodo," - Here you are, ma'am.

The US Congress's House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday re-passed a resolution aimed at putting pressure on the Serbian authorities to solve the murders of Ylli, Agron, and Mehmet Bytyqi, US citizens of Albanian origin who were killed after the Kosovo war in July 1999.

Faik Nika, the president of the Albanian National Council, said on Friday that the Albanian government will give financial support for the first time to assist the running of his organisation and its office in the municipality of Plav.

Nika told Montenegrin media the Albanian government has recently made three very important decisions for the Albanian community in Montenegro.

Fatmir Hasani, the only ethnic Albanian MP in the Serbian parliament, told BIRN that people living in Serbia's Albanian-majority Presevo Valley are suffering because of poor relations between Serbia and its former province Kosovo.

Kosovo MPs on Monday debated Hashim Thaci's draft resolution which proposed that the Albanian-majority municipalities of Presevo, Medvedja and Bujanovac in the Presevo Valley area of southern Serbia should unite with Kosovo.

Albanian officials are not very convincing when they denounce talk about a Greater Albania as Serbian and Russian propaganda designed to cultivate fear of Albania.

Starting this week, Ethnic Albanians from Montenegro and North Macedonia now have the same access to jobs in Albania as locals, according to a decision made by Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama's cabinet, which was made public on Monday.

He added that while Belgrade talks about compromise and dialogue, Pristina and Tirana are looking for ways to create Greater Albania - an expansionist nationalist project at the expense of Albanians' neighbors - and do it under the table.

A Kosovo parliamentary commission approved a draft resolution accusing Serbia of committing genocide against ethnic Albanians during the 1998-99 war, although experts questioned whether it has any practical purpose.