An extreme provocation by the Albanian president, Bayram Begai on the eve of the Greek Prime Minister’s visit to the minority regions of Northern Epirus, took place today during his visit to the minority municipality of Phoenice.

According to the original program of the visit, Begai would first visit the Town Hall of Phoenice, where he would be officially welcomed by the mayor Christos Kitsos. However, he did not stop at the town hall, because the Albanian president was reportedly disturbed by the Greek flag that is displayed in the forecourt, next to the flags of Albania and the EU.

It should be emphasized that the municipality of Phoenice is officially recognized as “minority region” by the Albanian authorities as well as internationally, with the right of the Greeks there to display their national symbols freely, to use the Greek language in the administration, etc.

The provocations continued in the central square of the village of Aliko, where there is a monument to the Greek members of the minority Massios, Raftis, Kotsis and Mitros who were murdered in cold blood by Albanian soldiers in December 1990 when they tried to escape to Greece. In an attempt to intimidate and terrorize the Greek minority, their bodies were tied behind cars and they were dragged in all the Greek villages of the region. By Presidential Decree in 1994, Albania named the four young men “Martyrs of Democracy”.

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However, their sacrifice, their memory and their national origin were not respected by the Albanian president, whose minions demanded from the police that there should be no Greek flag next to the monument, as it was.

This action angered the residents and students of the school, who had gathered in the village square to welcome the president of Albania, and left protesting the insult. After this development, the mayor Christos Kitsios canceled the ceremony and there was no laying of a wreath by Begai at the monument of the four Greeks.

As officials of the Greek minority comment, the Albanian president does not seem willing to acknowledge that in the minority municipalities -based on the relevant law- the Greek flag must be flown outside public buildings. They point out that Bairam Begai “should function as a unifying institutional factor and not as a former military man with a nationalist logic”.

The incident was commented on by the former president of Omonia, the Greek minority organization, Leonidas Pappas, who, after the Albanian president’s provocative action, refused to sit at Begai’s lunch with “intellectuals” -according to the announcement- of the Greek minority.