Cham issue

The Cham issue refers to a controversy which has been raised by Albania since the 1990s over the repatriation of the Cham Albanians, who were expelled from the Greek region of Epirus between 1944 and 1945, at the end of World War II, citing the collaboration of the majority of them with the occupying forces of the Axis powers. While Albania presses for the issue to be re-opened, Greece considers the matter closed. However, it was agreed to create a bilateral commission, only about the property issue, as a technical problem. The commission was set up in 1999, but has not yet functioned.

In 1913, the area of Chameria, as the whole Southern Epirus came under Greek control. Cham Albanians were given no minority status and they were discriminated. Muslim Chams were counted as a religious minority, and some of them were transferred to Turkey, during the 1923 population exchange, while their property was alienated by the Greek government, this being a term of the Turkish-Greek peace agreement. Orthodox Cham Albanians were counted as Greeks, and their language and Albanian heritage were under pressure of assimilation.

During the Fascist regime Italy cultivated the irredentism by promising expansion of Albania towards Thesprotia prefecture as part of the creation of a "Greater Albania". Italy organized ethnic Albanians in tactical army units and fascist militia inside Albania and groups of spies, saboteurs and irregulars in Chameria. The latter had orders from Galeazzo Ciano to cause unrest in Chameria, while Italy was preparing for invasion in Greece in October 1940. In August 1940 the killing, possibly by Greek police, of an Albanian possibly acting as saboteur, was used by Italy as a pretext to worsen relations with Greece and as a tool of propaganda in Albania. When Italy started the invasion in Greece on 28 October 1940 there were at least two battalions of Albanian fascist militia acting against the Greeks in the Korca area. Mussolini claimed publicly that two Albanian battalions were attached to each Italian division that invaded Greece. During the German-Italian occupation of Greece (1941–1944) the Italians gained control of Greek Epirus and attempted to annex it to Albania but Germans did not allow it. However, a small district of Epirus came under the administration of Tirana
At the end of World War II, nearly all Muslim Chams in Greece were expelled to Albania. They had collaborated with occupation forces (see: Cham Albanian collaboration with the Axis) and decided to join the Greek resistance only after the summer of 1944 when it was clear that the Germans were withdrawing.

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