ALBANIAN AID TO GUERRILLAS

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25588, 1 September 1948, Page 5

ALBANIAN AID TO GUERRILLAS

WESTERN POWERS MAY PROTEST LONDON, August" 30. “Britain, France, and the United States are consulting on the possibility of stopping Albania’s aid to General Markos’s guerrillas,” says Reuter’s diplomatic correspondent, quoting an authoritative source. “It is believed that a protest will be delivered in Tirana within a few days.” Agency correspondents in Athens say that the Greek Foreign Office has already informed overseas ambassadors that Britain and America will protest to Albania. The Greek Government to-night indicated its willingness to negotiate pacts of non-aggression and friendship with Albania, provided Albania ceases to aid the guerrillas and satisfies the Greek claim to Albanian-held territory in the Epirus. The Greek Government has sent mobile artillery and British 30-ton Centaur tanks with air support against guerrillas in the Vitsi Mountains. Three thousand five hundred guerrillas are believed to be concentrated in the area.

A Government staff spokesman said that the army had advanced in two sectors in the Vitsi perimeter, capturing three vantage points near Kastoria and driving within a mile of the main Vitsi summit.