Albanian people

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama speaks at the news conference with visiting Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic, the first Serbian leader to visit the nation after a troubled past, at the Palace of Brigades in the Albanian capital, Tirana, Wednesday, May 27, 2015. Both countries are trying to overcome their troubled past while working toward EU membership.

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama has again returned to the vexed issue of the exiled Cham community in a Greek TV interview broadcast on Tuesday.

Rama said it was a perfect Balkanic paradox that Albania and Greece remained "de jure" in a state of war despite signing a treaty of friendship in 1987.

Albanian police have stopped 27 people from Syria, Iraq and Sudan trying to cross the country toward Western Europe.

A statement Wednesday said police arrested three Albanians who were paid 600-1,200 euros ($675-1,350) per migrant, promising to take them to European Union countries. They face up to 10 years in jail if convicted.

Albania in January will start what is being called a "patriotic contract" - the registration of all Albanians who live outside the country.

The initiative is being prepared by the Interior Ministry and being conducted for the first time in 25 years, after countless Albanians emigrated, mostly to Western Europe and the United States.

The second international literature "White Sea" festival gathered authors from all over the Europe in Tirana in an attempt to revive the cultural life of the Albanian capital.

Organized by Institute for Democracy, Media, and Culture, the festival gives European writers a stage to hold dialogue with each other and include a wider audience while discussing their work.

“Albanians of .. Cameria” was the latest irredentist “pipedream” heard in the increasingly tense western Balkans this week, uttered by none other than an Albanian lawmaker who assumed a vice-speaker’s position in that country’s Parliament.

The phrase belongs to one Shpëtim Idrizi, listed as the president of the small nationalist Party for Justice, Integration and Unity.

Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has gone on Twitter to declare that Serbia will never let Albania and Kosovo unify in one state.

His tweet on Tuesday came after Serbian media reports claimed that Edi Rama of Albania had said that if the EU failed to allow the two states to unite within a borderless Europe, they would unify in "the classical way".