The VOA's journalist Ilir Ikonomi has released today an unheard interview, where the greatest Albanian diplomat Faik Konica speaks to the US radio 'NBC' a day after the Fascist Italy of Musolini invaded Albania on April 7, 1939.
Albania's plenipotentiary minister in Washington also showed relations between our country and Italy. He states inter alia in the interview that before the Italian invasion of Albania began, the relations between the two countries were very good, adding that many Albanian students have followed their high studies in the neighboring country.
Suddenly, on April 7, 1939, the friendly relations between Italy and Albania were noticeably cool and the good relations were replaced by military aggression.
The full posting of the journalist Ikonomi:
I present you an unpublished voicemail ever. It is the interview of Faik Konica, Albania's plenipotentiary minister in Washington, to the NBC radio on April 8, 1939, the day after Albania's invasion by Italy. 80 years have passed since that day. The Italian invasion was a serious blow to Minister Konica and others who believed in Benito Mussolini's ferocious friendship. In the interview, Konica calls Italy's aggression against unprotected Albania "a knife behind the back".
The interviewer is the journalist Hilmar Baukhage, a well-known commentator of that time. A few hours before the radio conversation, Baukhage visited Konica in his apartment at the Mayfloor Hotel in Washington, expressing surprise at the many books surrounding the Albanian minister. This is Konica's only voice we know to date. The interview is being made public with the permission of NBC radio in New York.