Italian senators visit Albania

TIRANA, Dec. 9 – A group of Italian senators visited Albania over weekend meeting with all senior official of the country. They were headed by the head of the defence committee Sergio De Gregorio. Italian senators met with Prime Minister Sali Berisha, Parliament Speaker Jozefina Topalli and Defence Minister Fatmir Mediu to discuss bilateral relations and especially concentrating on the military ones.
Albanian officials expressed to them their determination to make Albania a full NATO member by 2008 for which they are doing all the required reforms in the army and also increase the budget for the military to two percent of the GDP by 2008.
The topic of the discussion was Albania’s request to send another army unit to Lebanon’s UNIFIL under the Italian command. “We are where our allies are, where our partners are,” said Berisha. Kosova independence was naturally another topic of discussion with Albanian officials insisting that its independence was the only option for peace and stability in the region.