Kremlin Renews Its Overtures to Albania
MOSCOW — The Soviet Union Saturday renewed its call for normalized relations with Albania, calling the 25-year-old estrangement of the two communist nations unnatural and not in the best interest of either.
Pravda, the Communist Party newspaper, in an article marking Albania’s national holiday, said new Albanian leader Ramiz Alia had failed to change his country’s position on links with Moscow. But it said that Kremlin policy had changed since Albania severed relations with the Soviet Union in 1961 and that the party now opposes any transfer of ideological differences to the sphere of international relations.
Albania, which claims to be the only country practicing true communism, has continued to criticize the Soviet Union since Alia became party chief after the death of veteran leader Enver Hoxha in April, 1985.
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