Macedonian Albanian politician defects to guerrillas

A long-serving ethnic Albanian parliamentarian in Macedonia has defected from an Albanian party in the coalition government to join the ethnic Albanian guerrilla movement, the National Liberation Army.

Hisni Shaqiri who was a member of Arben Xhaferi's Democratic Party of the Albanians told the BBC that he'd spent ten fruitless years trying to get the government to address ethnic Albanian grievances, but had now joined the guerrillas because of the Macedonian offensive against the NLA.

A Macedonian government spokesman Antonio Milososki said that anyone choosing what he called terrorism was going the wrong way.

The vice president of the party he left ,Menduh Thaci, acknowledged that ethnic Albanians were frustrated at their inability to fulfil their aspirations through Macedonia's institutions, but said joining the NLA was damaging for Albanians.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service