Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias suspects Turkey is ‘behind’ the resurgence of Albanian nationalist claims on the ‘Cameria’ matter. In an interview to Mega TV, Sunday morning, Kotzias claimed Turkey was agitating the ‘Cham’ matter following the provocative banner hung in a Euro2016 match between Albania and Switzerland that accused Greece of genocide against 100,000 Albanians after WW2. Kotzias said the resurfacing of Albanian nationalism was a result of a feud between the Turkish political elite and the Islamic religious leaders in Albania who refused to be manipulated by Turkey.

‘Nationalist forces are disappointed that we (Greece) and Albania have been talks over the past period and are attempting to undermine the dialogue’, Kotzias underlined. Commenting on the incident with the banner, the Greek Minister said there were only 18,000 people of Albanian origin living in the Greece during WW2. ‘There was no such number (100,000)’, he stressed. ‘There was no genocide. Chams acted as traitors and war criminals who collaborated with the Nazis. They left Greece because the courts would have sentenced them to death’, he said. Kotzias accused the French organisers of the Euro2016 for allowing the banner to slip through, adding that UEFA swiftly took it down.