Jens Stoltenberg:
Welcome back to the NATO headquarters. It is great to see you again. The earthquake that hit Albania last November shocked us all and at the NATO, we all feel the pain of those who suffered. Edi, you have also suffered a personal loss, please accept my heartfelt condolences to all of them who lost their love ones in that terrible earthquake.
NATO respondent through our disaster relief center. We mobilized help from allies and partners. This shows that when our allies suffer we all stand together and we act together.
Today I welcome you to NATO as president in office of OESC and president of Albania and we really thank you for your strong support to both NATO but also your important work in the OSCE as chairperson in office of OSCE.
OSCE is crucial forum to discuss arms control, military transparency and confidence building measures. I welcome the role it plays in Ukraine and all the conflict areas.
This are all-important measures for NATO so you can count in our support in your role as OSCE chairman for this year.
Albania is a valued ally. You participation in NATO operations, missions and deployments in Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Baltic states are solid contributions to our shared security.
We can count to Albania active and positive commitment to stability and cooperation in the Western Balkan region and your active role in promoting NATO open door policy.
I am encouraged by Albania’s effort to invest more in defense and I support you in this endeavor. NATO investment in the Kuçova airbase shows our commitment to Albania and to the region.
We will help and this will help us all become safer, because it will strengthen our presence in this part of Europe.
So Prime Minister, Rama, thank you once again for Albania’s strong contribution to our shared security and our stability. Through NATO and now through OSCE chairmanship. So once again welcome, is great to see you here.
Prime Minister, Edi Rama:
Thank you very much
Mister Secretary General Jens
I am here and I am honored to be here in the capacity of the chairman in office of OSCE but also to take advantage of this opportunity to share with you some more about Albania and NATO relations.
First, thank you very much for your warm words about the tragedy that has hit Albania on November 26. And also for your generous help by calling upon allies to be helpful and I have to tell you also publicly as I told you in private that we are very grateful to all of them, military of NATO members that have been very much from day one by our side and have helped us to deal with this devastating tragedy. As for the OSCE I have to repeat that for us the crisis in and around Ukraine remains the most pressing security challenge in Europe and that’s why it is an utmost priority of the Albanian chairmanship. We’ll do all we can to support efforts towards peaceful resolution and we’ll encourage respect for OSCE principles and commitments and the full implementation of the Minsk Agreement, supporting the efforts of the Trilateral Contact Group and the Normandy Process, with a view to implement commitments which make the lives of citizens easier. And here comes the amazing role and the great importance of the presence of the special monitoring mission in Ukraine as an essential tool to deescalate tensions and move towards resolution of the conflict. NATO member countries have been among the major contributors to the mission, both in terms of funds and human resources and this continued support is very much welcomed. Just to give an idea, it’s over 4 million people on both sides of the contact line that have benefited from the special monitoring mission, monitoring and facilitating localized ceasefires in 2019. And at the same time, although they were 143 civilian casualties, unacceptable and heartbreaking, it’s a significant decrease compared to the previous year, 2018 and we look forward to decrease it further and I am very hopeful that also on the side of the NATO member countries there will be sensibility to support the increase of technological facilities to monitor the conflict zone, where especially during nighttime there are a lot of breaks of the ceasefire. And last but not least, I want to reconfirm also publicly what I reconfirmed in the NATO summit and in our private meeting that Albania, beyond the need to reshape its own budget and to address the needs for the massive reconstruction operation will stick to its commitment about the dedicated budget to NATO and we will continue to stick to it and to meet the objective we have settled together in Wales. Thank you also for being so helpful and supportive in the region and especially lately for having supported the very welcomed development between Belgrade and Pristina about the resettlement of the airline. It’s really a very important step and I fully agree with you that it’s a step that should be followed by others in a process of peaceful cooperation and regional development. So, again, thank you for everything and we will continue to work hand to hand and we consider NATO as an important part of our work in the OSCE and as an important factor in all our common efforts to make our mission a success and to make people’s lives better during this year.
Denada Shkodrani, Albanian Public Television: What will be the priority of your cooperation for the security of the population in the conflict zones like Ukraine?
Stoltenberg: So first of all, we strongly appreciate the cooperation between NATO and OSCE and just the fact that Prime Minister Edi Rama is here now and is going to brief all the 29 NATO members, allies on his plans and ambitions for his tenure as a chairperson of OSCE reflects the importance of the cooperation between NATO and OSCE. Second, we strongly support the OSCE in general and in particular the efforts of the OSCE in Ukraine, the special monitoring mission is of great importance to help defuse the conflict, to implement a ceasefire and we have stated again and again from the NATO side that it is extremely important that the monitors can operate freely, have unimpeded access to the whole territory, and of course that it is absolutely unacceptable that some of the equipment that they use and some of the surveillance drones are attacked. So, we support PM Rama in his efforts to strengthen OSCE’s position and activities in Ukraine, that’s a key to defuse conflict and find a lasting and peaceful solution.
Rama: Let me stress that beyond the quite disturbing general frame there are some steps forward that have been undertaken also thanks to the involvement and efforts of Chancellor Merkel and President Macron through the Normandy Format and we have seen the exchange of a large group of detainees on December 29th which is particularly relevant and I am very hopeful that we will see more of this urgently needed positive steps toward peaceful resolution of the conflict. So it’s important to consolidate what has been achieved so far, the situation is very fragile of course, but we exchange exactly that how to support the process and how through some needed measures to strengthen both the capacities of the special monitoring mission through technology and the trust between both sides through helping and pushing them towards more significant steps.
Ernest Bunguri, Euronews Albania: Prime Minister, there have been lately some mainly social media frictions between forth and back Tirana, Tehran. Does it represent any real threat to the small Albania and by consequence to NATO? And for Secretary General do we have a date for the newest country that is expected to come, North Macedonia, how is it going with the procedure in Spain and how do you see these efforts of cooperation between countries in the region and specifically again these attempts of agreement between Serbia and Kosovo? Thank you!
Rama: Albania is proud to have offered shelter to a few thousand people whose lives were threatened by the regime in Tehran, it’s part of our tradition, it’s part of who we are. We are the only country that after the Second World War had more Jews than before. So we know very well that to Jews, Albania was a safe home during the time of the Holocaust. We did it as a humanitarian operation, it was not a statement against the regime frankly, but we are really not at all going to change our tradition and also our approach towards these people who need to be protected from a regime that threatens their lives. And as for them, their malicious activities in Albania, we have been very clear. We have expelled their Ambassador first and now, lately, other people that were involved in activities that are out of the diplomatic regulated mission and we will continue to stand strong and on the other side we are not alone in that. So, we are part of a big alliance and this operation is one that has been made hand to hand with the United States.
Stoltenberg: Nearly all NATO allies have now ratified the accession protocol for North Macedonia so I really hope that North Macedonia will become a full member in the near future, I am absolutely certain that they will become a member, but of course we need to respect that there is a process that has to take place in all the 29 parliaments before the accession protocol is ratified in all the allied countries. But we are very close to finalizing that process. I think that full membership for North Macedonia is of great importance to North Macedonia, to the whole region and to NATO and we can see that because NATO has enlarged over the last year, that has been a historic and extremely important process. We have seen that also in the Western Balkans, Albania joined in 2009, again good for Albania, good for NATO and NATO and Albania we work very closely together and this is important for our shared security. It’s also a way for NATO to invest in infrastructure and I mentioned the planned NATO investment in the Kuçova airbase, this is a significant investment. We have decided to do so and I will make sure that we are implementing this as soon as possible. This is about upgrading the airbase, upgrading the runway, the tower and also establishing storage facilities for ammunition and for fuel and then this base can be used for many important activities including air policing, training out from the upgraded, modernized airbase in Albania. Again good for Albania and good for all other NATO allied countries. We strongly support the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade, therefore also support their reassuming the dialogue because that had been suspended for some time now, we believe that this dialogue is the only way to find sustainable and lasting political solution to the conflict and we will also support it not only through providing our political support, but also by helping to solve one issue and that is the issue of their lower airspace over Kosovo, there is a NATO facilitated process addressing that issue and the hope is that we can find a way to agree how to reopen that lower airspace so that there can be direct air traffic between Belgrade and Pristina and we are working hard on that within this NATO framework.
