Gudzic: Creating Greater Albania would lead to regional destabilization

Historian Aleksandar Gudzic, commenting on the statement of Kosovo's Minister of Infrastructure Liburn Aliu that Kosovo is only a temporary project until it unites with Albania, emphasizes for Kosovo Online that the desire for unification among Albanians in the Balkans has always been present, and he warns that this is a dangerous idea that would destabilize the Balkans.

Aliu's statement sparked a significant debate among Albanians in Kosovo, even among some ministers in the Kosovo government. Historian Gudzic points out that there is a tendency among the political elite of Kosovo Albanians, as well as Albanians in the Balkans, for the creation of a greater or, as they call it, "natural Albania."

"The platform for solving the Albanian issue at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century was adopted on October 20, 1998, when the Albanian Academy of Sciences and Arts adopted a resolution on the need to create a natural Albania, which would include today's Kosovo and Metohija, the Presevo Valley, Bujanovac, Medvedja, western Macedonia, and parts of northern Montenegro," Gudzic reminds.

He believes it is a dangerous idea that would destabilize the region because, as he emphasizes, Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia will not passively observe the creation of a Greater Albania and the dismantling of internationally recognized borders.

"The current model in force is the German model from the 1960s regarding the existence of several Albanian states. In the 1960s, West Germany devised a plan for the political reconfiguration of the Balkans, where there would be several of those Albanian states. Whether Kosovo will unite with Albania at some point is hard to say. The only thing we can say with certainty is that if it happens, it will lead to the destabilization of the Balkans," Gudzic concluded.