Albanians blame Greece for FYROM poll problems

[Crvena zvezda]

Greece 'Orchestrated' FYROM Poll Violence
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Menduh Thaci18 June 2008 Skopje _ The leader of FYROMs Democratic Party of Albanians appears to suggest Greece orchestrated violence during the elections, and not members of his party.

“A neighboring country’s secret service has invested millions in one FYROM political party in order to destabilise the country with serious election irregularities,” Democratic Party of Albanians leader Menduh Thaci told media.

Thaci refused to mention the name of the country but it was clear he was talking about Greece.

“This helped them to acquire fresh arguments why FYROM should not get a NATO invitation because the “name” argument is too weak,” Thaci went on to suggest.

Athens-Skopje relations plunged to a new low in April after Greece vetoed FYROMs invitation to join NATO. Greece says the name FYROM implies Skopje's territorial claims on the northern Greek province of the same name and vetoed FYROMs NATO bid because of the unresolved dispute.

Thaci did not say whether the political party that he mentioned was the DPA’s bitter ethnic Albanian political rival, the Democratic Union for Integration, DUI, with which they previously exchanged strong accusations over who was behind the violence that left one person dead and several wounded during the June 1 polls. Read more: BalkanInsight.com - Deadly Shooting Mars Macedonia Election

The DPA leader rebuffed previous claims by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, OSCE, poll monitors that DPA members in high police positions are responsible for the violence and irregularities during the election.

On Monday after Sunday’s poll rerun, the OSCE head of FYROM mission, Robert Barry urged for a “removal of party activists from senior political positions,” directly singling out high police officials from DPA ranks including the Deputy Interior Minister Refet Elmazi.