Belgrade – Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama’s visit to Serbia stirred ethnic tensions on Tuesday as his compatriots in the volatile south welcomed him as their own leader.
Several thousand ethnic Albanians greeted Rama in Presevo, south of Belgrade, while waving Albanian flags.
Report says billboards proclaimed him their prime minister and national music played.
At least one of the billboards was hit by a bag of black paint, reflecting the animosity between Serbs and Albanians, which has flamed twice over the past month.
Rama and his host, Serbian PM Aleksandar Vucic, publicly clashed on Monday in Belgrade after he said Serbia should recognize Kosovo, a former Serbian province with an Albanian majority that declared independence in 2008.
Vucic accused Rama of veering away from an agreed protocol to make the provocation.
However, President Tomislav Nikolic later refused to meet with Rama.
Rama’s insistence on travelling to the Presevo Valley, an area where ethnic Albanians launched a rebellion for more rights in 1999, was also regarded as provocative by many in Serbia.
Serbian police closed the main highway linking Belgrade to Skopje for hours and blocked overpasses ahead of Rama’s motorcade.
Albanians form a majority of the population in the part of southern Serbia bordering Macedonia and Kosovo to the west, although Presevo is their political and cultural hub.
Meanwhile, Rama’s visit to Serbia is the first by an Albanian head of government since 1946.
The trip was to signal a thawing of relations after decades of animosity that over the past 15 years particularly focused on Kosovo, where ethnic Albanians endured Belgrade’s heavy-handed treatment in a 1998 to -99 wars.
Rama’s visit was postponed from Oct. 22 after the violence at the football match a week earlier. (dpa/NAN)