In August 1878, the Ottoman government selected him to overview the process of the cession of the Plav-Gucia region to Montenegro in compliance to the decisions of the Congress of Berlin.[3] Mehmed Ali Pasha's first task was the pacification of the Albanian League of Prizren, which opposed the border change as part of the areas (Plav-Gucia) were Albanian-inhabited. He arrived in Kosovo in late August, attempting to make local Albanians comply with the Berlin Treaty[3] but was blocked from any further movement towards the Ottoman-Montenegrin border by the local committees of the Albanian League. Stationed in Abdullah Pasha Dreni's estate in Gjakova with several Ottoman battalions he was killed on September 6 after a seven-day battle with several thousand Albanians opposing cessation of Albanian inhabited lands to European powers.[2][3][5][6][3]