Albania Chief Seeking Coalition

President Sali Berisha, confronted with an armed civilian revolt throughout Albania’s south, said Sunday he sought a “new government of reconciliation” to represent all political parties and offered to set new elections.

Opposition leaders accepted the presidential offer even as rebel groups in the south dismissed it as a tactic and continued to demand that Berisha step down.

The new Parliament, Berisha said with some ambivalence, should include members of the Socialist Party, whom he has long derided and who, after widely criticized elections last summer, have been boycotting the legislature.

Berisha’s statement came the day after the army lost the key town of Gjirokaster to insurgents who have demanded his resignation for more than a week.

“He is giving up step by step,” said Skender Sera, a retired army general who was forced out by Berisha in 1992, and who now is heading the defense of insurgent-controlled Vlore. But, he said, “There will be no peace as long as Berisha is in the (presidential) chair.”