Letter: Useless Nato

Sir: I have never noticed the "differences" in racial characteristics between Albanians and Serbs of which Marcus Tanner writes (The Balkan Question, 11 May) , even though I have lived in Yugoslavia all my life.

To say that Serbs as Slavs are "darker" and more "heavily built" than the "Celtic"-looking Albanians is not only totally wrong, but it also smacks of a rhetoric that is better suited to the likes of Hitler. I myself would not, after great experience, have been able to identify either "long before he or she utters a word".

ANDREJ SAVIN

King's College, Cambridge