As it was already announced, Prime Minister Rama met today with his Greek homologue Kyriakos Mitsotakis and also the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece Nikos Dendias. Initially Rama met in closed doors with Dendias, in what was described by the Greek Minister as a meeting focused on “bilateral relations, Albania’s EU perspective and recent regional developments.” Then, both Rama and Dendias headed to launch at Mitsotakis house. Without sharing much information about the content of the meeting, Rama thanked Mitsotakis for the wonderful hospitality, adding that “we did a summary of the COVID situation, the relationship between the two countries and the regional problems! There’s a mutual willingness to further develop our strategic relationship,” wrote Rama in his social media. According to some Albanian media, Greece will give very soon 1,500 vaccines for the medial staff in Albania to fight COVID-19, while that number will rise to around 10,000 doses overall in the coming weeks.
While many analysts suggested that the maritime border dispute between Albania and Greece was going to be one of the key topics of today’s meetings, neither Rama, Mitsotakis or Dendias gave any information on that issue. There were also some speculations regarding the timing of the visit, just one day after Rama finished his two day visit in Ankara, where he signed the High Level Strategic Cooperation Council with Turkey. For some Greek media, the timing was an indication that Rama was trying to play a double game, to benefit from Turkey’s economic investments, and on the same time receive Greek support over Albania’s integration process in the EU. Other journalists went even further, by suggesting that Rama perhaps was trying to bring closer Ankara with Athens, to soften their relationship after the growing tensions between Greece and Turkey over the maritime border dispute.
