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TIRANA, Albania, Sept. 23 (UPI) Albanian Telecom started on Thursday to build a new phone link with Montenegro by optical cable.
This cable will be 20 kilometers long (12 miles), reaching from the Albanian town of Shkodra to Murriqan on the Montenegrin border, said Gezim Podgorica, director of Shkodra Telecom.
Another fiber-optics cable will be built within two months from Shkodra to Hani Hotit, the main border crossing between Albania and Montenegro. Podgorica, the capital of the independence-minded Yugoslav repbulic, will gain new access to international telephone lines through this link.
Now, Montenegro only has access to the international telephone network via Yugoslavia's connections. The agreement to link Albania and Montenegro by the new cable was signed two months ago in Tirana.
This new link is a part of an Albanian project to modernize its telephone network to match neighbor countries such as Greece and Macedonia. Tirana considers it part of the implementation Balkan Stability Pact and at the same time a promotion for better relations between Albania and Montenegro.
Supporting any step that makes Belgrade weaker, Albania has given its support to Montenegrin efforts to be independent from Serbia. Albanian President Rexhep Meidani has repeatedly said that his new Balkan vision includes two new states: Kosovo and Montenegro.
Last week, Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic invited Albanian Prime Minister Pandeli Majko to officially visit Podgorica next spring.
The border gates between the two small Balkan countries continue to be closed, because the Belgrade-controlled Yugoslav army still polices the border with Albania.