ALBANIA: ASSESSMENT OF NATO READINESS

C O N F I D E N T I A L TIRANA 000056

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/23/2018
TAGS: NATO PREL PINR AL
SUBJECT: ALBANIA: ASSESSMENT OF NATO READINESS

REF: A) 07 STATE 170091 B) 07 TIRANA 1090 C) 07
TIRANA 0050 D) 07 TIRANA 724 E) 07 TIRANA
755 F) 07 TIRANA 997 G) 07 TIRANA 1011 H)
07 TIRANA 1033 I) 07 TIRANA 1067 J) 07
TIRANA 1069 K) TIRANA 14 L) 07 TIRANA 1003
M) 07 TIRANA 1035 N) TIRANA 23 O) 07 TIRANA
858 P) 07 TIRANA 870 Q) 07 TIRANA 1083 R)
07 TIRANA 463

Classified By: DCM S.A. CRISTINA REASONS 1.4 (B),(D)


1. (U) The following headings track those in Ref A:

All Intel Topics
--------------


2. (SBU) Please see Ref B for an overview of Albania's
intelligence services.


3. (C) Successive democratic Albanian governments, both
Democratic Party (DP) and Socialist Party (SP) led, have
worked to clean intelligence services of those tainted by
former connections with the Sigurimi or high-level communist
apparatchiks. To the extent this was a problem in Albania's
intelligence services, it no longer is from the USG
perspective, as reported Ref B.

Relations With Regional Players
--------------


4. (SBU) The Government and Opposition strongly support
Kosovo's independence as proposed in the Ahtisaari plan and
have used close relationships with Kosovar political leaders
to urge moderation and cooperation with international
leadership through the Contact Group and the UN. Albanian
leaders have expressed concern that unrest and violence in
Kosovo could reflect badly on Albania, possibly hurting
Albania's chances for NATO and EU membership. (Refs C, D, E,
F, and G.)


5. (C) The GOA is very concerned that Macedonia's problems
with Greece could torpedo Albania's chances for a NATO
invitation. President Topi, PM Berisha, as well as Foreign
Minister Basha and DefMin Mediu have urged their Macedonian
counterparts to make greater efforts to win Greek support
(Ref H).


6. (C) While the GOA is not predicting violence in Kosovo or
Macedonia in the aftermath of a coordinated declaration of
independence, it has held preliminary deliberations on
contingency planning in the event of a problem. This
planning is not far advanced.


7. (C) From the GOA perspective, relations with Macedonia and
Croatia are good, although GOA interlocutors have expressed
occasional frustration with what they perceive as Croatia's
unwillingness to meet its two A3 partners halfway. Albania
has found the A3 mechanism useful for coordinating NATO
accession efforts.

Judicial Reform
--------------


8. (SBU) A new Prosecutor General, Ina Rama, a judge on the
Court of Appeals for Serious Crimes since 2005, was appointed
in November (Refs J, L). The opposition has publicly
declared that becoming a NATO member is important for the
country and they will work with the government to bring about
necessary reforms (Refs I, K). The Judicial Committee is on
track to complete a review of initial reforms by the time
Parliament reconvenes on January 21. It appears the reforms
will address NATO's recommendations for an independent and
transparent judiciary.

Electoral Reform
--------------


9. (SBU) The GOA is on track to complete its new automated
civil registry by summer 2008 (Ref M). The second technical
element of electoral reform is the issuance of biometric
identity cards and passports. Response for the request for
proposal issued in November was overwhelming, with 47
companies expressing interest. As a result, the bid response
deadline was pushed back to February 28 to give the
government's expert consultants time to answer bidder
questions (Ref N). The GOA is projecting it will begin
issuing biometric documents in December 2008. Concerning
reform of the electoral system itself, a bipartisan
Parliamentary commission is evaluating various proposals.

Corruption
--------------

10. (C) An early success of the newly established Joint
Investigative Unit (JIU) was the September arrest of three
high-level Ministry of Transport officials, including a
Deputy Minister (Ref O). The three are still in jail while
the case is being investigated. While many low-level
officials have been arrested for corruption, these were the
highest level arrests since 2002 and signal that the fight
against corruption may be gaining in strength and
professionalism. The JIU, established with significant
Embassy support, fosters better cooperation among
crime-fighting institutions, including prosecution,
investigators and intelligence. (Ref R) Also in September,
in an unrelated action, Minister of Foreign Affairs Basha was
accused by former Prosecutor General Sollaku of abuse of
office in connection with the Bechtel Durres-Kukes Highway
award when Basha was Minister of Transportation (Ref P).
Since Members of Parliament enjoy immunity from prosecution,
Parliament had to vote to lift Basha's immunity (Ref Q). The
case is under investigation. In 2005 cases were opened
against two other ministers in former PM Fatos Nano's cabinet
- former Minister of Interior Igli Toska and former Minister
of Finance Anastas Angjeli. Those cases are still under
investigation.


11. (C) Albania's Law on Civil Services was passed in 1998 to
protect employees from political purges. However, every
government since then has found ways to circumvent it,
leading to massive personnel turnovers following a change in
government. Many of the recent firings and re-hirings,
especially in the Albanian State Police, have lacked
transparency.

Trafficking
--------------


12. (C) The GOA's National Coordinator For Anti-Trafficking
is a Deputy Minister of Interior. She is in charge of
coordinating the government's anti-trafficking efforts. The
GOA had developed a National Action Plan for 2005 - 2007
which laid out goals and how it would meet them. It has
consistently worked toward these goals, but has sometimes
fallen short of reaching them. The Plan highlights the
National Referral Mechanism, which is a measure to use all
the government's resources (anti-trafficking and customs
police, NGOs, and social workers) to identify victims and
refer them for appropriate services. The GOA has worked to
bring government players together on this and needs to
continue to work toward better coordination. In 2005 Albania
signed an agreement with Greece to improve anti-trafficking
coordination. Albania has ratified it; Greece has not.
Albania is working with Kosovo and Macedonia on similar
agreements. There are criminal penalties for trafficking,
which are enforced. Please see post's 2007 Trafficking In
Persons Report for further information.

Handling Classified Material
--------------


13. (C) According to the January 17 Albania MAP SPC(R) report:

Begin text.

Progress has been made in all security disciplines despite
limited budgetary resources available to the National
Security Authority (NSA). With a projected increase in the
work load in terms of a rise in both the number of classified
documents to handle but also vetting requirements, the
provision of additional resources would be necessary.
Subsequent to the adoption of the legislative amendments to
the Law on Classified Information (No. 8457) by Parliament
the two remaining draft changes to the Normative Acts will
ensure the completion of an all-encompassing legislative
framework harmonized with NATO standards.

In the personnel security field, the identification of
positions requiring NATO clearances throughout the Ministries
is a significant achievement but the organization of a
national program for security education, training and
briefings for cleared individuals remains a priority issue.
A number of shortcomings identified in relation to background
checks were successfully addressed. In particular, issues
dealing with shortcomings such as lack of interviews have
been corrected and checks into time spent abroad continue to
be developed appropriately. The issue of security rules and
regulations for personnel posted abroad will be addressed by
the NSA in the near future in order to support the personnel
security vetting program.

The registry system meets NATO security standards with a
Central Registry overseeing the application of NATO security
standards. A total of 10 sub registries are now in
operation. All sub registries function under the authority of
the Central Registry, which trains and certifies all SR
staff. The Central Registry also inspects all sub-registries
on a six month basis and receives regular document musters
every month. In addition, regular sweeps are also being
conducted at the Central and sub registries. However, a
discrepancy was identified in the flow of information from
the Albanian mission in Brussels to the intended recipients
in Tirana. The situation is now being corrected. A
destruction policy for obsolete classified information will
be implemented once the respective Normative Act is approved.

The establishment of the auxiliary INFOSEC sub-structure
continues. As per parliamentary approval of the Law on
Classified Information, the relevant sub-structures (namely
the National Communications Security Authority, the National
Distribution Authority and the National Accreditation
Authority) are now formally identified. Regarding the secure
transmission of NATO/PfP classified information between the
Albanian Mission in Brussels and Tirana, PEM-HEART software
has been procured, which permits the secure transmission of
information up to the level of NATO/PfP RESTRICTED. A number
of initiatives are now underway, to include the security
accreditation of networks in various ministries processing
and storing NATO classified information. The NSA has
certified the networks of the MoD, General Headquarters of
the Armed Forces and the ShiSH, for NATO information up to
and including the Confidential level.

Physical security standards applied continue to be in line
with NATO's standards. Certain improvements were implemented
in some sub registries. It was recommended to continue the
physical security upgrades at the Council of Ministers
sub-registry by moving the latter to a separate room.

End text.
WITHERS