Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06TIRANA743
2006-07-14 05:20:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Tirana
Cable title:  

AMBASSADOR'S JULY 11 MEETING WITH PM BERISHA

Tags:  AL PGOV PTER 
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DE RUEHTI #0743/01 1950520
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 140520Z JUL 06
FM AMEMBASSY TIRANA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 4554
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE IMMEDIATE
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TIRANA 000743 

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EUR/SCE - PAUL PFEUFFER, BRAD BELL AND MITCH BENEDICT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2016
TAGS: AL PGOV PTER
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S JULY 11 MEETING WITH PM BERISHA


Classified By: Marcie B. Ries IAW E.O 12958, reasons 1.4(b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 TIRANA 000743

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

EUR/SCE - PAUL PFEUFFER, BRAD BELL AND MITCH BENEDICT

E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/12/2016
TAGS: AL PGOV PTER
SUBJECT: AMBASSADOR'S JULY 11 MEETING WITH PM BERISHA


Classified By: Marcie B. Ries IAW E.O 12958, reasons 1.4(b) and (d)


1. (C) The Ambassador met with Prime Minister Berisha on July
11
to review requirements for NATO accession and Albania's
reform process. The Prime Minister signaled that he
understood quite well from his discussion with Assistant
Secretary Fried in Croatia that while the U.S. hoped there

SIPDIS
would be a positive signal that the door was open to the
A-3 from Riga, there would be no invitations issued. The
Ambassador said she hoped Albania would act quickly on the
results of the DOD defense assessment, which will be
briefed to the PM later in the week. She cautioned,
though, that a successful bid for NATO membership depended
as much on the strengthening of democratic institutions and
the rule of law as on defense reform. As was the case with
Macedonia, elections that met international standards would
be critical. (Note: Albania is due for local elections in
early 2007. End note) In a subsequent discussion of
governance issues, including the impeachment of the
Prosecutor General, property restitution, the high council
of justice and electoral reform, the Prime Minister stated
he would respect the countries' laws and separation of
powers and would reach out to the opposition. The Prime
Minister also mentioned he is interested in increasing
Albania's troop commitment in Afghanistan - possibly
together with Croatia and Macedonia, if they are willing.
End summary.


2. (C) The Prime Minister recounted the high points of his
bilateral meeting with Assistant Secretary Fried at the
Southeast Europe Summit the previous day in Croatia. The
discussion had been a very positive one: he appreciated
very much Fried's comments on Albania's contribution to the
GWOT, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan and to regional
stability. He was gratified that Albania's relationship
with the United States was based on a warm friendship and
real cooperation.


3. (C) The Prime Minister mentioned he was well aware that
the coming months would be crucial ones for the Kosovo
status process. Before his recent visit he had not been

confident his message of "tolerance" would be received well
by everyone but was relieved to find that feedback was
positive. He would continue to work hard with Kosovo
counterparts to keep them working on making progress on
standards issues.


4. (C) He told the Ambassador that his top priority now was
NATO
membership for Albania. He had underscored this with all
of the members of his government and created an
inter-ministerial committee for the purpose of making the
reforms necessary to get an invitation. There was no
question that Albania would devote the required 2 percent
of gnp to defense spending. He looked forward to hearing
the results of the defense review supported by the U.S.
Department of Defense, which expected would be very helpful
to Albania in meeting its MAP commitments.


5. (C) In addition to defense reform, Albania was also making
progress in increasing security in its ports and on its
borders. Albania had been working hard to secure the trust
of the Government of Italy and as a result cooperation with
Italy in law enforcement and anti-trafficking activities
was much improved. Albania was considering beginning
helicopter surveillance of its coast and was also weighing
the purchase of sophisticated scanning equipment from
Switzerland to give it the capability to examine more
thoroughly vehicles and containers. The Ambassador noted
that security was also heavily dependent on tightly
controlling access to ports in particular, and that the
Embassy via the ICITAP program was working with the
Ministry of Transport on specific plans and training to
upgrade port security.


6. (C) The Ambassador told Berisha that while defense and
security
reforms were important, in assessing Albania's application,
NATO members would look equally hard at democracy and rule
of law issues. There had been some good progress on
organized crime, specifically apprehending known criminals,
and this had been recognized. But the NAC would also look
at, for example, whether the local elections meet
international standards.


7. (C) The Prime Minister conceded that there was a stalemate
on
election reform and specifically on voters' lists, which
everyone knew had been a problem in the previous election.
The opposition had suddenly reversed course and was

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insisting that the temporary lists developed for the
Parliamentary elections could not be used. This created a
real dilemma since OSCE was projecting that it would take
three years to create permanent voters' lists. He thought
it a reasonable solution to use the temporary lists one
last time. On other electoral reform issues, he was ready
to accept all recommendations put forward by ODIHR as well
as whatever changes the opposition wanted in the election
system. He thought what had been a stalemate on
appointments to tthe Central Election Commission was now on
its way to resolution.


8. (C) Berisha said he thought the Opposition's strategy was
to
postpone the local elections. Tirana mayor and Opposition
leader Edi Rama had approached a number of people,
including small party leaders Ilir Meta and Gjinushi to run
in his stead in the mayoral race. Both had turned him
down. (Comment: it is general knowledge that the D/P
dominates Tirana, making victory for any S/P candidate,
even Rama, not a foregone conclusion. End Comment) He
thought Rama feared that former PM Nano was calculating he
could return to S/P leadership if Rama loses the local
election.


9. (C) Berisha acknowleged that politics had taken a tough
turn
but denied they were "hyper-polarized" as some alleged. He
said he was aware that there was concern that he was trying
to consolidate power under his own office but denied having
this motivation. He walked the Ambassador through several
examples to make his point. He described the recent
reconstitution of the media control board - taken as a
causus belli by the Opposition - not as an attempt to gain
power over the media before the elections but as necessary
to properly regulate frequencies and to overcome rampant
disrespect of intellectual property rights. It was
necessary to have an agency to deal with land distribution
vice a alaetary commission because it neededasafo iil servants and to be organicalylne ote
government. The current commisinhs4,000 files and
has only dealt with eih ecnt of them. I was obvious
they neededagvernment commitmn ehind them. Berisha
sai he knew that some wr saying that he was trying to
take control of independent institutions. This was not
the case. He was not asking to put the general prosecutor
under the control of the government. Appointing the
prosecutor was the prerogative of the president. He
opposed a secret ballot on dismissal because the Parliament
was only voting a report. (Note: the Opposition is asking
for a secret ballot in the hopes some of the D/P will vote
against and embarrass the government.) The Constitution
only allows for secret ballots when the vote is up or down
on a person. Berisha did not answer the Ambassador's
direct question as to what would happen should the
Parliament vote for dismissal (almost certain) and the
President refuse to dismiss him.


10. (C) Finally, Berisha said he wanted to increase
Albania's troop commitment in Afghanistan and possibly
deploy a small contingent in Darfur as well. He had
asked the Defense Minister to examine whether this
was feasible. The Ambassador asked why he wanted to
put Albanian troops in Darfur. "We want to be anywhere
you are", he said.


11. (C) Comment. While the Prime Minister is, in most
cases, saying the right things, some of the Government's
initiatives are at best hastily-conceived and at worst simply
contrary to their own legal framework. We will continue to
work closely with the government to try to channel its zeal
in the right direction, including engaging the Oppossition on
matters of broad, national interest. In the last two days
the Ambassador has met both with the Quint and the EU/OSCE in
the framework of the local "international group," all of whom
have agreed on these basic messages.


12. (C) Comment cont. On the issue of additional troop
commitments, we will seek an opportunity to discuss with the
Defense Minister some more details as to what the GOA has in
mind. The Prime Minister told us that his first preference
would be to deploy in Afghanistan as part of an A-3 brigade
and that he will soon raise this issue with his Macedonian
counterpart. There is a serious question of where the
resources would come for this deployment and whether it would
be something which would be value-added in a military sense.
Once we have additional details, we will solicit Washington
views on whether we should encourage this intiative.




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RIES