Macedonia's prime minister shocks everyone: I have Albanian descent

Macedonia's Prime Minister Zoran Zaev has long fought for the officialisation of Albanian language in Macedonia, thus challenging Macedonian parties.

But recently he surprised everyone after declaring he is Albanian.

He has clarified that he is originally from Strumica Ilirë and that his grandparents spoke Albanian.

In one interview, Zaev said:

I have an Albanian Orthodox background, both from my grandmother and my grandfather since Strumica's Ilirë since they accepted Orthodox faith. In time, the Slavs, mainly by violence, assimilated and imposed Macedonian. But this is all history. I forgive and we have to forget those things now and we have to build a society and life for everyone.

I don't know how to speak Albanian because Albanian doesn't have mother tongue, but the language of great-great grandparents, but it doesn't matter how we speak, but how we feel. I feel Albanian Orthodox.

More than 25 million Orthodox Albanians live in the Balkans, mainly in the IRJM, Greece, Albania and Serbia. That's why we easily understand the Greeks. Gruevski was fascist and ethnically clean, and with such a man it cannot be negotiated”.