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Tanjug News Agency October 24, 2009 Montenegro "won't give up inch of territory" PODGORICA: Montenegro's Interior Ministry on Friday reacted to accusations heard from Kosovo's Albanians concerning the border line. Residents from 16 villages near Pec and Decani, in Metohija – in the western part of the province – have accused Montenegro of conducting a "flawed marking of the border". The Montenegrin side responded by saying that Montenegro never had any territorial aspirations "toward neighboring countries", but that they will "not hand over an inch of their territory to anyone". The villagers claim that they lost a thousand hectares of land, which allegedly belongs to the Pec municipality. The ministry in Podgorica explained that the signs in question were not placed to mark the border, and added that they are informative in nature. According to this, the border lines between Montenegro and its neighbors will be marked, "after contracts on border and border demarcation with proper border markings have been signed". Several dozen villagers protested earlier this week on the border, demanding that Montenegrin authorities move the signs – placed in locations previously marked by KFOR – six kilometers inside its territory. The ethnic Albanians claim that they suffered damage "after the signing of the Kumanovo agreement in 1999", because their land allegedly "remained inside Montenegro's territory". They also accused Montenegro of taking the land "that belonged to their families for decades", and threatened to "raise tensions" unless the issue is resolved in the way they want.
