Albania Revolt Spreads, but Key City Accepts Compromise

TIRANA, Albania â€”  Revolt spread throughout most of southern Albania on Monday, but rebel leaders from one key city agreed after talks with Italian diplomats to lay down their arms.

Representatives from the port city of Vlore said they wanted swift implementation of a peace deal between President Sali Berisha and his political opponents.

The declaration by eight representatives of the Vlore rebel committee was signed on an Italian warship at a meeting with Italy’s ambassador to Albania, Paolo Foresti.

It was not clear how rebels would hand over weapons in Vlore, where the uprising that has swept southern towns erupted last month, or whether the deal had any validity in other areas where rebels have extended their grip.

The latest towns to fall to rebels reportedly include Berat, abandoned without a fight by the army, and nearby Kucove, where rebels towed three MIGs off the tarmac of an abandoned air base to hide them from government forces. Violence in Kucove injured eight people, the Health Ministry said.

Other unconfirmed reports indicated that rebels had seized Polican and Corovode. In Permet, residents looted an artillery brigade after more than 2,000 soldiers switched sides and let civilians into their base.

Meanwhile, Berisha met leaders of his own Democratic Party of Albania and the opposition in Tirana, the capital, to form an interim government to oversee elections due by June under the peace accord.

Perikli Teta, a leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance, said the two sides had agreed to split ministries equally between government and opposition parties.