Minister Kodheli takes part in the Defence Ministerial in Brussels

: Published: Tuesday, 14 June 2016 15:55

NATO Defence ministers’ meeting has started today in Brussels, where they have also established the main milestones on which will be discussed the strengthening of Alliance’s defense capacities. During this day, the ministers dealt with and set up concrete steps on strengthening the collective defense of NATO. In particular, they discussed about NATO’s posture in deterring and defending risks (Deterrence and Defense). At this point, it was agreed on the deployment and magnitude of NATO advanced force on its eastern borders, as well as the continuance of work in examining the proposals to extend this deployment and in the Black Sea area.

Defence Minister Mrs. Kodheli, who is participating in this meeting, underlined that Albania remains committed in its contribution to build a modern and efficient protection of NATO. The Minister expressed our country's support for the deployment of troops to the Alliance's eastern borders that Albania remains committed to consider its participation in the future. She also underlined that our country will continue to play an active role in the Alliance by supporting the contributions in the framework of Very High Readiness Action Plan. An indicator of this is the fact that Albania took part in the exercise "Brilliant Jump 2016" that has just finished, while the exercise "Anaconda 2016" in Poland is underway.

Focusing on the risks and challenges emanating from the south of Alliance, Mrs. Kodheli stressed that our country supports the steps undertaken until now, however, she proceeded by saying that we must create the best conditions to understand the roots of the problem, so in this regard our country is accelerating the efforts to establish in Tirana the NATO Center Excellence against the risk of foreign fighters.

Finally, Defence Minister drew the line under the fact that Albania, as a country aspiring to join the EU is ready to support any agenda that strengthens the cooperation NATO - EU in Warsaw NATO Summit.