A joint session of the Assembly of Albania and the Assembly of Kosovo was held on the eve of November 28th, the 110th anniversary of the National Flag and Independence Day of Albanians worldwide on Sunday. Lawmakers from both countries attended the session jointly chaired by the Speaker of the Assembly of Albania, Lindita Nikolla, and the Speaker of the Assembly of Kosovo, Glauk Konjufca.
Prime Minister Edi Rama, who attended the joint meeting together with his Kosovo counterpart Albin Kurti, delivered a speech to plenary session:
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Honourable Speakers of our parliaments, Mrs. Nikolla and Mr. Konjufca,
Honourable lawmakers from both our states,
Honourable Prime Minister of Kosovo, dear Albin,
Here we are all together for the first time like never before, 110 years since that moment of our common history, when distinguished representatives from the four vilayets of the then Albania headed to Vlora.
110 years ago tomorrow on November 28 of the third autumn of 1912, after the remarks by the chairman Ismail Qemal Bej to clarify on the serious and grave threat Albania was facing, all the delegates unanimously decided that Albania became free, sovereign and independent.
It is probably not appropriate to draw attention on this very festive day, but today, precisely today one cannot shun remembering that the life story of those 40 architects of Albania’s independence met a tragic end, in extreme contrast to their gilded signature on the Declaration of Independence document.
Their subsequent treatment, too, before or after the fall of communism, is both politically determined and sporadically limited. Let’s remember Dom Nikoll Kaçorri, the Catholic prelate who signed the Independence document, the first Deputy Prime Minister of Albania in the government of Ismail Qemali. He died in exile, after Haxhi Qamili burned his parish house and destroyed his entire library.
Or Haxhi Vehbi Dibra, another Independence signatory, Albania’s first Muslim Community leader, who called for national unification at Vlora Assembly, saying “the Christian and the Muslim are Albanian inseparable brothers.”
Jorgji Karbunara, the patriotic teacher who represented the district of Berat at Vlora Assembly, but who, in an old age, was brutally tortured by the mercenaries of Esat Pashe Toptani, and as if the tortures were not enough for him, he was then caught and dragged him along the city’s streets and was severely beaten to death by the rebels headed by Haxhi Qamili, but he literally never stood up again.
Qazim Kokoshi, Vlora Assembly signatory, who after being arrested by the Gestapo and incarcerated in Italy, he met the very same fate upon return to Albania, where he died of tortures at interrogation rooms during the communist regime.
Shefqet Dajiu, Elbasan delegate and the secretary of the Vlora Assembly, who wrote the Declaration of the Independence in Ottoman Turkish, his wealth was confiscated in 1945 and was murdered a year later in 1946.
Zini Abaz Kanina was ultimately crippled and let die as a dog in a prison cell in 1951.
Xhelal Koprencka, the delegate representing Skrapar, who was treacherously killed in 1919, not by foreigners, but by Albanians.
Apo Qemal Karaosmani and Jani Minga, both Independence signatories who died in absolute solitude and totally ruined in every respect after the war.
I wouldn’t go that far down this long line of tragic end of lives of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, from Luigj Gurakuqi, who although being indeed among the very few later honored, after being killed as a traitor by the hands of the Albanians, “this giant liberator” as Fan Noli portrays him in of his most iconic poem dedicated to Luigj Gurakuqi, to Mit’hat Frasheri, with whom even now as we speak, many people cannot make peace here in Albania to at least render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.
I am turning this page of thought by resorting to the opinion that it is up to our institutions on one hand, namely our parliaments and the governments to find a well-thought-out approach to clear the way towards granting – although very late, but better late than never – those 40 men the place they deserve in the books and the common spaces, because without them nobody knows where our position would be in our history and nobody knows how our coexistence would be and go on in the future.
Turning the page to today, allow me to share with you the conviction that Albanians have never enjoyed a better position relative to the foreigners, but again I don’t believe that Albanians are now better relative to our own selves. And let’s go back to Kosovo’s landscape today through our minds’ eyes if compared to the country’s situation just a few years ago. I don’t think it would be fair for us to have an inner push and acknowledge that we all had imagined that Kosovo would be free, sovereign and its independence would have been final on Albania’s 110th independence anniversary and its independence would be a final one. I am also fully confident that Kosovo’s final international recognition will happen sooner rather than later and that Kosovo won’t have to wait as long as it has been waiting to date to secure international recognition and join every international body of the world we live in.
On the other hand, even more tangible and impressive is the outlook of North Macedonia. Many years later after Kosovo’s liberation and independence, in North Macedonia, then Macedonia, was the country where the Albanian language continued to be seen as the language of an undesirable party. It was a country where the Albanian flag continued to be seen as a provocation.
It was a country where, I think, not many would now dare say they knew that the Albanian language was to become an official language on the 110th anniversary of Albania’s independence, they knew that Albanians’ participation in the government and the state institutions would be so high, and even the parliament Speaker would be an Albanian.
Likewise, I do not think that many foresaw that the day could come when an Albanian was to head the government of Montenegro, as it is the case now, and definitely that the rights of Albanians as a whole are much more advanced and much more accepted as such than they used to ever be.
Albania-Kosovo ties are not more excellent, just because they are divided into states, but united in one heart and are more productive than ever before.
This is clearly demonstrated by the facts, not just by the annual joint meetings between the governments of both countries, but by the will and increased capacity, not to simply figure it out in principle, but also practically implement and deliver on the cooperation of mutual interest.
It suffices to look at the trade exchanges data or the freedom of movement, which seemed mission impossible until lately. Or the joint ABC textbook, another milestone event, despite a long delayed one. Joint work is also underway on compiling the Albanian encyclopaedia, a task taken over by the Academies of Sciences of both countries, or the on the daily cooperation on the energy sector, or the ongoing work to turn the major seaport and railway project between the two countries into a reality.
A bid has been forwarded by a broad group of some of the biggest European companies to conduct the feasibility study commissioned under a joint decision by the governments of both our countries. Meanwhile, an international tender for construction of the new Durres port in the Porto Romano area will be launched next year and should everything goes according to plan, the work on construction of the new port will kick off at the beginning of the second half of next year. It is a common seaport project that includes two dry ports in Prishtina and Struga that will be connected to the railway. The feasibility study on the Durres-Prishtina railway is underway, whereas discussions with the EU and the government of North Macedonia are underway to build the other railway. These are facts and on December 12 and I very much hope that the Kosovo Prime Minister and his cabinet members for the relevant sectors will join us in a large public presentation event of the final Durres Port project design by the leading Royal Haskoning company. This final project will undergo the international tender procedures and the construction work is scheduled to kick off by the beginning of the second half of 2023. So, without wanting to continue this speech overlong, I would like to go back to where I started by paying tribute to those who cleared the way long time ago to the opportunities we were later provided and we Albanians took advantage of some of these opportunities, while wasting a good part of them in a considerable part of this our coexistence, in this very land called the land of Albania, where we did whatever it took and we are still doing whatever it takes to hinder one another, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. But today is a good and beautiful day, an inspiring day also for this view that has brought us all together, no matter whether we like it or not, no matter whether we would accept to share and live in the same neighbourhood with one another.
I would like to draw attention to two names, without which one can’t imagine the progress to date and the long way we have gone and the continuity after this day; the Democratic League of Kosovo and the Kosovo Liberation Army. The two are intrinsically linked to Ibrahim Rugova, who passed away prematurely, but with his mission already accomplished, and Hashim Thaçi, another absent one in this hall, who has temporarily departed from us with an ongoing mission.
Thank you very much!
