“Albania-US relations are not damaged”

For the first time after taking the decision to say “no” to the proposition to accept Syria’s chemical weapons and destroy them in our country, after several civil protests broke up throughout the country, the Albanian Prime Minister, Edi Rama, gave an exclusive interview on Top Channel’s “Top Story”.

“My purpose, in the entire purpose of discussions, was not only for Albania to say ‘yes’ and get involved in this operation, but for Albania to come out stronger and cleaner after this operation. The process was built with this purpose, which was additional to the purpose of the United States and other countries that were involved. Because there are other countries involved, with the interest to continue this operation, although they have not yet been physically involved, to develop it concretely. It is very simple. We didn’t have the conditions for this to happen. To try to benefit from a protest for such a special issue, which became so important for an entire people, is not a lack of leadership, but the contrary. I guarantee you that since the process took a long time, it means that as Prime Minister, I have been completely aware about who and how I was representing, and for what I had to insist with our partners. The opposition of Albania has broken the political ice in the history of freedom in the relation with the United States of America, for which politics has never been divided in two different sides, when it was about strategic and national interests. I guarantee you that if not for the craziness of the opposition, this position would have had the same decency. Our relations with the United States have not been damaged, due to the dignity that we had in this process. We stood to the end, different from others who left earlier. They left naturally, because they were discussing in the same way as we did. The demanded clarifications and arguments in the same way as we did. But we had the moral obligation to look for a solution until the end, and be supporters of those partners, without whom Albania wouldn’t be what it is today, as regards its freedom; without which the Albanian people wouldn’t have today two free and independent states in the middle of Europe, and without Europe who knows where it would have been today. This is what we did, and we did it with dignity”, Rama declared.

Alban Dudushi: What happens when you say “no” to the United States?

“I know what happens when someone challenges the United States with the proportions of what the Albanian opposition did. Not because their stance was against, but because they lacked of respect for what the United States represent, by describing them as a danger for the citizens’ life. You can lose a lot from the respect that they have. I am certain that the United States have it very clear that we did everything we could for supporting their efforts, and Albania didn’t get involved in this operation because it couldn’t, not because we didn’t have the will to be by the side of the United States. This was impossible, as I explained in front of the public, and the United States understand, especially for the fact that our partners were on the other side of the table and they followed the entire dynamics of discussions and had the possibility to understand our final position”, Rama declared.

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