An Albanian "historian" Elena Kocaqi has gone on live national television claiming Greek people do not exist in modern-day Greece and says that Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras is in fact Albanian.
Kocaqi’s extremely anti-Greek discussion which was featured on one of Albania’s most popular television shows was meant to be a chat on the current developments in the Balkan region, however, developed into an anti-Greek rant by the guest panelists.
Greek Professor Panayiotis Barkas, from Northern Epirus, who was one of the guests left the conversation after it quickly turned into a nationalistic and anti-Greek discussion.
“There is no Greek population. The population of Greece, all those who fought, were Orthodox Arvanites with Albanian fustanellas,” she said.
“Maybe we are going a little overboard”, the show’s presenter said, however, Kocaqi persisted and asked the host to name one Greek hero who fought in the Independence wars against the Ottomans in 1821, claiming the Turks had been expelled from Greece by Albanians.
"Everyone in Greece is Albanian and are ashamed to say it. Albanians such as the modern Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who is an Arvanite and is Albanian,” she said.
Professor Barkas later said that the panelists, led by the show’s host, found the chance to divert the discussion, which was supposed to focus on the latest Balkan developments, and once more limited the matter to the Albanian-Greek relations and pushed their extreme nationalistic views and irredentist policies which lay territorial claims against Greece.
“Using a mixture of fake myths and folklore, they tried to justify expansionist views.”
During his appearance on the show, Professor Barkas tried to point out the fact that Arvanites are 100% Greek. “The Arvanites are Greeks who also speak the Arvanian language and have no relation to the Albanians. You will not find an Arvanite in Greece who wants to say he is Albanian.”
*Watch the video here-
