Slaying of Ethnic Albanian Threatens Talks in Macedonia
Hundreds gathered Wednesday to bury an ethnic Albanian activist whose assassination threatened to undermine peace talks between militants and the Macedonian government.
Gunmen shot Naser Hani four times on Tuesday night as he resisted a kidnapping attempt in Struga. The town is a few miles from a resort where key players in Macedonia’s ongoing crisis are to meet today to discuss a peace plan.
The slaying threatened a fragile truce between government forces and ethnic Albanians.
Hani, 42, a father of three, had acted as an intermediary between ethnic Albanian militants and the political parties in Macedonia’s government. Some ethnic Albanians angered by his death insisted that such slayings would only feed sympathy for the rebels.
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