U.N. Chief Applauds Thaw by Albania
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VIENNA — U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, in a historic visit to Albania, welcomed the Balkan country’s emergence from decades of isolation and urged its leaders to pay more attention to human rights, the official ATA news agency said Saturday.
In his second day in Tirana, the U.N. chief placed a wreath at a monument honoring Albania’s dead from World War II.
On Friday, at ceremonies welcoming Perez de Cuellar, Albania’s leaders hinted they are willing to open wider the door that has been closed since the war, when it retreated into isolationism and ultra-orthodox Marxism.
Foreign Minister Reis Malile was quoted by ATA as saying that Albania “will develop further relations with the European Community. Albania is for international cooperation, for friendship with all the countries that are for this cooperation.”
ATA, in its Saturday dispatch, quoted Perez de Cuellar as praising Albania’s leaders for recent gains in human rights.
Perez de Cuellar’s visit is the first by a U.N. secretary general.
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