TIRANA, Aug 21 /ATA/ Prime Minister Edi Rama on Friday addressed the cultural event held yesterday in Pustec, which was attended by the Prime Minister of North Macedonia and the Mayor, noting that the Albanian national anthem was not played alongside the North Macedonian anthem.
In a social media statement, Rama said the incident in Pustec was a revealing parody of the contrasting mindsets that exist in this part of Europe.
According to the Prime Minister, Pustec Mayor Pali Kolefski had previously requested that the Albanian national anthem also be played.
Rama said that Kolefski’s request was ignored and that he later apologized for something that was not his responsibility. He added that the mayor had acted as a respectable statesman and citizen of European Albania, bringing credit to himself and to his North Macedonian community, to whom, he said, “we wish nothing but the best.”
The Prime Minister stressed that Albania has honored the small community by granting it special status as a standalone municipality, emphasizing that minorities are regarded not as statistics but as a national asset. He added that minority citizens are not simply numbers, but brothers and sisters who enjoy the same freedoms and rights as everyone else.
Rama said occasional visits to Albania by groups promoting what he called “Balkan nationalist folklore” posed no threat to the country’s sovereignty or political stability. He added that there were no “Trojan horses” or externally driven diasporas capable of unsettling Albania’s domestic affairs.
Rama expressed his “sincere regret” for what he described as the sponsors of this “old circus of flags” in the age of artificial intelligence.
“Meanwhile, to the self-styled patriots among us who, in moments like these, rush to their digital mirrors demanding that Albania respond in kind, I say this: No, Albania and Europe’s Balkans must not, and will not, allow themselves to reduce the currency of their values to the level of the Pustec parody,” Prime Minister Rama said in his statement.
/m.m/j.p/sm/
