(22 Dec 2022)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Livadhja, Albania - 22 December 2022
1. Military helicopter transporting Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis landing
2. Mitsotakis leaving the helicopter
3. Mitsotakis and Albanian Tourism Minister Mirela Kumbaro walking
4. Wide of the ethnic Greek minority in Livadhja cheering Mitsotakis
5. Various of Mitsotakis meeting with representatives and members of the ethnic Greek minority

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dervican, Albania - 22 December 2022
6. Various of Mitsotakis meeting with people in Dervican
7. Mitsotakis and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama walking through crowd
8. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece:
“And I want you to know that with the prime minister, Edi Rama, we have a very close cooperation, we know the issues that concern you. I believe we can set them in motion and resolve all of them in a spirit of cooperation and a spirit of good will.”
9. Mitsotakis and Orthodox priests
10. SOUNDBITE (Greek) Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece:
“It is not by chance that here today there are two flags, the Greek and Albanian ones, and between them is the European flag. The road for Albania’s full induction into Europe will not be an easy one but it will be a road on which Greece will always be a supporter, because Albania deserves to be a member of Europe, and it will always have our country’s undivided support.”
11. Mitsotakis and Rama walking through crowds
12. SOUNDBITE (Albanian) Edi Rama, Prime Minister of Albania:
“For us the (Greek) minority is an irreplaceable bridge of an unbreakable bond between our two countries.”
13. Mitsotakis and Rama in the crowds
14. Wide of gathering, dance performance
15. Mitsotakis thanking crowds
STORYLINE:
The Greek prime minister on Thursday offered his country’s full support to neighboring Albania’s further integration efforts with the European Union.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the Greek minority in southern Albania, the first visit of a prime minister to Albania’s ethnic Greek minority areas since his father, Konstantinos Mitsotakis, travelled there when he was prime minister 31 years ago.

Relations between Greece and post-communist Albania have been at times uneasy, largely over minority rights and the sizeable Albanian community in Greece.

Mitsotakis has called for the full respect of the Greek minority, saying that “it is Albania’s obligation, in the framework of its rapprochement with Europe, to fully respect your rights,” referring to the right to self-determination, learning the Greek language at all levels and the protection of property rights.

Last summer Albania launched full membership negotiations with the bloc.

Mitsotakis met with the local Greek minority community at Himara, on the Albanian Riviera, then travelled to another southern commune, Livadhja, before ending his one-day trip in Dervican, where most of the Greek minority is located.

The exact size of the Greek minority is unknown.

They declined to take part in the last census 11 years ago.

Both Mitsotakis and his Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, said the Greek minority was the link between the two countries.

Rama announced that the government would renovate Dervican’s small square and name it after Mitsotakis' late father and also place bust of him there.

An estimated 600,000 Albanians crossed into Greece after the fall of the communist regime in 1990.

EU member Greece has long backed Albania’s desire to eventually join the 27-nation bloc.






That has yet to happen.

AP video shot by Erion Xhabafti



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