Albania asks for permission to give excess ammunition to Iraq, Afghanistan

TIRANA, Dec. 12 – Albanian Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu on asked NATO member countries on Wednesday to let them receive, free of charge, the excess ammunition found in Albania.
Speaking at a meeting, Mediu asked Washington and other NATO member countries’ authorities whether the Albanian government might gave this ammunition as aid to the new democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan. “The Albanian government would be ready to give as aid all the excess ammunition of our armed forces to build peace and stability in those countries (Iraq and Afghanistan),” said Mediu. Albania’s army has already destroyed thousands of tons of ammunition and is continuing the process as part of a program to scrap excess weaponry by 2010. An estimated 839 million rounds of ammunition were looted from Albanian army depots in 1997, when citizens enraged over losing their life savings in bogus pyramid investment schemes stormed army barracks. The government since has collected much of that ammunition, though it is still believed to be remaining in people’s homes.
Albania, a small, predominantly Muslim nation on the Adriatic, hopes to join NATO next year. In that respect, it has deployed small army units to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq.