HE Ambassador Qirjako Kureta is the representative of Albania in Bulgaria and has been in Sofia for two years now. I spoke with him during his official visit to the BNR and after his meeting with Director General Alexander Velev. They had both discussed concrete subjects for deepening bilateral cooperation in the media sphere.

“We Albanian people have traditionally good feelings towards Bulgaria. Our diplomatic relations have had a century-long history and at this stage we share common goals en route to the validation of European and Euro-Atlantic values,” Ambassador Kureta said.

A few days ago Albania received green light to start its EU accession negotiations. That came as a result of major and tough reforms. The judicial one has been particularly hard and the Albanian parliament continues to work on it. Two regional initiatives, headquartered at Tirana are additional positive signs for the more stable international position of the country. These are the Western Balkans Fund and the RYCO Regional Youth Cooperation Office of the Western Balkans.

“We have signed with Bulgaria a memorandum for cooperation in the sphere of the European integration,” the ambassador explained. “The similarities between both countries, your difficulties in the past and the mistakes made can serve as lessons to us. Hence the will of our institutions to use both the positive and negative experience. That is why over the next months we will tackle particular steps in that direction.”

The political level of bilateral relations has been always high, but what about the economic one. More from Ambassador Kureta:

“The level is not the same in terms of economic cooperation due to different reasons: the lack of direct transport lines, of market, customs, tax or even product issue knowledge. Still, the Bulgarian products in Albania are recognizable. Some enlivening has been registered recently. There are Bulgarian companies in Albania or mixed ones – those are a bit over 60. Some 14,000 Bulgarian tourists visited my country last year. Of course, those figures are still small but we do hope that the direction is the right one and those will boost year on year.”

The TAP Trans Adriatic Pipeline project currently being built up across the Albanian territory will for sure contribute to this positive trend. It will start on the Greek – Turkish border along the Maritsa riverbank and crossing the territories of Northern Greece, South Albania and the bottom of the Adriatic Sea it will end up in Southern Italy.

“This is one of the most important projects for our country,” Ambassador Kureta said. “It might provide gas supplies for both our needs and the needs of our northern neighbors: Kosovo and Montenegro. And since Bulgaria is also interested in the diversification of its energy sources I see another option for cooperation here.”

Despite the fact that the project has been stagnated for years, the ambassador is optimistic about it. He says that the working groups involved are pushing it and as the funding of such projects is a priority this one will be executed.

Yesterday Albania celebrated its national holiday /104 years of independence/ and so HE Kureta greeted all his compatriots by saying: “These are important dates that we honor, mark and evaluate. We are happy to share our joy with friendly nations such as the Bulgarian one.”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev