April 7, 1959
GREECE-ALBANIA: The Defense Ministry has issued an announcement regarding an incident on the Greek-Albanian border on March 30, after guards at a border post noticed a group of Albanian villagers guarded by a contingent of armed men about 300 meters away on the frontier between the two countries. The commander of the post sent out two men to learn the reason for the group’s presence and to ascertain whether they had crossed the border. As they were approaching, the armed Albanians fired on them with automatic weapons, forcing them to respond with two shots. They then returned to their guard post. The Albanian military authorities made no protest nor did they seek a meeting of border authorities, as is customary in these cases. The Greek Foreign Ministry said the Albanians were solely to blame for the incident, as they fired on Greek border guards who were on Greek territory. «Protests on the part of the Albanian government should be attributed to their usual tactics of trying to make Greece appear to have caused the incident. This is unacceptable,» it said. Tirana radio has reported that an Albanian guard was killed in the exchange of fire and another was injured.
