The Minister of Foreign Affairs Ditmir Bushati and the Minister of Defense Mimi Kodheli held an open dialogue with the students of the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Tirana on the occasion of the 8th anniversary of Albania’s membership in the North Atlantic Alliance.

Both Ministers emphasized the importance of this membership to Albania, but also the obligations arising from it.

In his speech, Minister Bushati highlighted that “NATO is primarily a major political organization, then a military organization. In this regard, Albania’s membership in the Alliance, except its military character and the reforms made in the security field as well as our military reform, means also political reforms and democratization process in which Albania is involved”.

He stressed that Albania as a NATO member state, located in one of the most important ports in the Adriatic, has sought to expand its democratic radius influence in the Western Balkans and the South East Europe area, because being a member of such an organization does not necessarily mean having only rights but also obligations. That which distinguishes Albania and generally Albanians, is clearly related with the Atlantic perspective that we have as a nation”, Minister Bushati stated.

Furthermore, Minister Bushati stressed that within NATO Albania has been trying to deepen cooperation with its strategic allies and other key countries. Also within such alliances and in the context of the Adriatic trilateral, we try to foster our regional cooperation with Croatia and at the same time highly supporting Montenegro’s membership into NATO. As regards to the Allies’ commitments for the contributions and expenses on defense budgets, the Ministers underscored that while referring to such expenses, there should be taken into consideration efforts and investments made in the security field such as contributions of the member states to the NATO operations. In this context, Minister Bushati stated that Albania has been highly assessed not only for its shown political willingness, but also for concrete contribution through its engagement in the fight against terrorism, in cooperation with the Alliance’s key partners.

In her speech, Minister Kodheli brought into attention the Armed Forces’ efforts, whose daily work, as she underlined, is not necessarily perceived as other state services. She mentioned the readiness of the armed forces to always be at the citizens’ service within the country, as well as their increased participation in international missions. “20% of our Armed Forces have been on field out of boarders. Albania is present in all NATO missions, has doubled its presence in Afghanistan, has doubled its presence in KFOR in Kosovo, is present in the NATO mission in the Aegean Sea and anywhere where NATO is present with its structures.” – Minister Kodheli stated.

Furthermore, Minister Kodheli seized the opportunity to invite students to join the Armed Forces and along with Minister Bushati answered their questions, which mainly related with the role of our Armed Forces alongside other NATO countries and Albania's foreign policy.

The open dialogue was also attended by several members of our Armed Forces, participants in international missions, who shared their experience in these missions and the feeling of being part of the Albanian Armed Forces.​