Albania supported territorial claims to another region of Serbia

Sally Berisha, the former president and prime minister of Albania, issued a special statement in which he supported territorial claims to another region of Serbia - Sandjak, where Bosniaks - separatist Slavic Muslims - live in the Raska district.

Berisha expressed concern about the “mass eviction, extermination and assimilation of Albanians in the sanjak by the Serbian authorities over the past 100 years,” the news agency “Tanyug».

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Berisha supported the activities of local separatists - the “Bosniak National Assembly” led by Suleiman Ugljanin, which seeks special status for this part of Serbia with subsequent separation from the state.

On the site "Kosovo for Sandjak“It is reported that the leadership of this organization visited Berisha.

“I took the opportunity to sincerely congratulate Mr. Ugljanin, with whom we worked in the 90s against the aggression of the Milosevic regime in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to call on the international community to support his Sandzak project as a condition for stability and peace in the region,” - Berisha said.

As PolitNavigator reported, the historical region of Sandzak includes municipalities in southwestern Serbia, as well as settlements in Montenegro. As of 2002, more than 400 thousand people lived in this territory, more than half of whom were Muslim Slavs, and 45% were Serbs and Montenegrins.

Until the end of the 19th century, this was the center of the Serbian medieval state - Raska. However, in the Middle Ages, the area was captured by the Ottoman Empire, when many local residents were forced to convert to Islam. At the end of the 1908th century, as a result of the Russian-Turkish war, Serbia gained independence, but the Sandzak was occupied by Austria-Hungary. In 1913-XNUMX these lands returned under Turkish rule.

Following the First Balkan War in 1913, the Sandzak was divided between Serbia and Montenegro, and modern borders were established in 1945.

The separatists' claims extend to the municipalities of the Serbian communities of Raska and Zlatibor, such as Novi Pazar, Senica, Tutin, Prijepolje, Nova Varos, Priboj, as well as parts of Montenegro with the settlements of Pljevlja, Bijelo Polje, Berane, Andrijevica, Petnica, Gusinje, Plav and Rozhae.

As in other similar cases, the separatists paint rosy prospects for ordinary people - “a political union of equal citizens and peoples,” “democracy,” “independent courts,” a fair Constitution that takes into account the rights of all nationalities, and other promises.

The separatists propose holding elections to the “Sandjak Parliament” under the auspices of the UN, the European Union and the OSCE. The new authorities must then form their own police force. There is no provision for an army—the territory will supposedly be “demilitarized.”

It should also be recalled that in recent years the West has shown support for the Muslims of the Sandjak. German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded that the Serbian authorities “ensure the rights of national minorities,” threatening otherwise to block the European integration process.

The simultaneous activation of street Maidan protesters in Belgrade, Albanian separatists in the Presevo Valley and Bosniak Muslims suggests that a special operation is being carried out against Serbia at a time of aggravation around Kosovo in order to force the Serbian authorities to make concessions to the West and the top Kosovars in Pristina.