Türkiye, Albania contributing to peace in Balkans as NATO allies, says President Erdogan

By Esra Tekin

ISTANBUL (AA) – Türkiye and Albania are two members of the NATO alliance who play a role in maintaining peace and stability in the Balkans region, said Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday.

“Türkiye and Albania are two NATO allies contributing to the preservation of peace and stability in the Balkans,” Erdogan told a joint news conference in the capital Ankara with Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, who is paying a one-day official visit.

Erdogan said Albania was on “the right side of the history” in a UN General Assembly vote last December in favor of an immediate humanitarian cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, stressing the crucial importance of its solidarity with the “oppressed Palestinian people” at this time, over four months into Israeli onslaught in Gaza, which has taken nearly 30,000 lives.

On the subject of the Fetullah Terrorist Organization (FETO), a group that mounted a failed coup in Türkiye in 2016 but continues to infiltrate and threaten other countries, Erdogan said: “We will not allow the nefarious network attempting to poison our relations through the FETO terrorist organization to succeed; we will continue our fight against them.”

Erdogan added that Türkiye has elevated its trade volume with Albania to the level of $1 billion, and now they seek to double this to $2 billion.

Turkish relations with the Balkan nation of Albania derive their strength from shared history and strong social and cultural bonds, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry.