Albania in NATO?

Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha was in Brussels Wednesday on a two-day official visit for talks with the EU and NATO. Albania is hoping to receive an invitation to join the Western military alliance along with Macedonia and Croatia at an April summit in Bucharest, Romania.
“Our expectation for the Bucharest summit is to have the invitation for the NATO membership and I am mostly confident,” he said after meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
But Albania should do more in its last kilometer till the NATO decision in April.
Scheffer told Berisha he was pleased with Albania’s progress, but said more work was needed on judicial and electoral reforms before the summit. Berisha promised to push forward with the reforms. Although Croatia is widely seen as ready to join the alliance, diplomats have raised doubts about Albania and Macedonia.
“I assured the (NATO) ambassadors that our reforms in Albania are irreversible and clear progress will be seen in the weeks and months to come,” he said. He warned that a snub in Bucharest would be “an unhappy signal” but said Albania would continue to push for membership.
“We will persist in our project until we realize it,” he said.
Berisha said he would likely send about 50 Albanian officers to help train the Afghan army in response to a NATO request, adding to about 140 soldiers his country currently has serving with the allied force there.
He said Albania was also going to send about 60 soldiers to join an EU peacekeeping mission preparing to deploy to Chad to protect refugees from Sudan’s Darfur region.
Albania has small army units under NATO in Afghanistan and Bosnia. Another military unit is in Iraq and Tirana had said it was ready to send peacekeepers in Lebanon as well.
Albania ready to help
an independent Kosova
Albania expressed its readiness Wednesday to help Kosova cope with any blockade Serbia might impose in response to a declaration of independence. That was clearly mentioned by Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha who also insisted that there is no plan of joining with Kosova turning down fears of the creation of a Greater Albania.
Berisha visited Brussels to go to the NATO headquarters ahead of the Bucharest summit in April when the country expects to get the membership invitation. He was also accompanied by Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha and opposition Socialist Party lawmaker Ylli Bufi and leader of the opposition Socialist Movement for Integration Ilir Meta. In an interview to the Associated Press news agency, Berisha said Albania would open up road, sea and air links for Kosova.
“We have a plan to react in case of Serbian blockade in order to diminish the consequences of it in Kosova,” said Berisha.
Serbia strongly opposes Kosova’s separatist plans. Nevertheless, the province’s leaders have promised to declare independence from Serbia in the coming weeks.
Berisha said resolving the question of Kosova’s status was crucial for stability in the region, but he appealed to the Kosova Albanians not to antagonize Serbia or the Serb minority living in the province.
“Albanians must be very cautious, self restrained, not triumphalist, because it is very important for Kosova to remain a multiethnic society,” he said. “Albanians call on (the Kosova) Albanians to decide quietly, to avoid any kind of provocation, any kind of extreme actions.” Berisha dismissed the concerns of some in the region that Kosova’s breaking away from Serbia could one day lead to it uniting with Albania, forming a state that would also seek to bring in Albanian-speaking areas of neighboring Macedonia. “I’m deeply convinced that Albanians in Kosova are very, very serious in their independence project,” he insisted. Berisha said Kosova’s priority was joining the European Union, not Albania.
“I don’t see a possibility (of union with Albania). Albania, for its side, is decided to fully respect international borders of Kosova, there isn’t any hesitation on that.”