Macedonian Albanian politician defects to guerrillas

A long-serving parliamentarian in an ethnic Albanian party that's part of the coalition government in Macedonia says he has defected to the 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 joined the guerrillas because of the Macedonian offensive against the NLA and what he called the civilian population in ethnic Albanian villages near the border with Kosovo, Serbia's mainly ethnic Albanian province.

He said that ethnic Albanian politicians had worked for ten years to get the government to address the grievances of Albanians, but it had not done the slightest to help. He said the NLA had been obliged to go for the military option, and said there was a state of war in some ethnic Albanian areas, although political options could not be ruled out.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service