Rama’s ‘Courtesy’ towards Turkey Eyed with Caution by Albania’s Opposition and the EU

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama appears to be promoting Turkey as the country’s main ally and benefactor and has been criticized for that inside and outside of the country.
Commenting on Rama’s excessive invocation of his Anklara trip, and the intensifying Turkish embrace, former President Sali Berisha accused Rama of being Erdogan’s vassal. When he was PM relations of Berisha with Erdogan worsened because of Albania’s reluctance to back a candidacy of Turkey at the UN.
But even the European Union is increasingly annoyed with Rama’s position regarding relationship with Turkey such as his criticism of the Brussels’s stance against Turkey, its vaccination efforts and others, said ekathimerini.com on Monday.
A strategic partnership accord signed by Rama and Erdogan is considered as the latest step towards the climax of the rapprochement between the two countries. Albania has declared many countries as strategic partners with the US on top of the list but no official documents have been signed. So the Tirana-Ankara document becomes the first formal act of this kind.
But in the meantime Rama has promised that a hospital will be built, with Turkish money, and will be ready by the April 25 election.
The €60 million donation was trumpeted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during Rama’s visit to Ankara earlier this month.
The site where the hospital will be built, in the city of Fier, in southwest Albania, has not been expropraited yet, according to Albanian media, but Turkish construction material is already arriving and Rama visited the site last week.
However the pledge of Rama to keep ‘distance’ with circles allegedly linked with Gulen movement circles stationed in Albania particularly in the field of education, long time ago seems to be the highest achievement of Turkish diplomacy.
A document compiled by UN rapporteurs and obtained by Nordic Monitor which released its content on January 21, 2021, asked the Turkish government to provide further information about its operations in coordination with authorities in Afghanistan, Albania, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Gabon, Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Lebanon and Pakistan for the abduction, arbitrary arrest, detention, enforced disappearance or torture of at least 100 individuals suspected of involvement with the Hizmet/Gulen movement.
In the eyes of many analysts the latest moves by Rama are much related to the elections which are approaching and his ambition seems great to get a third mandate of governance in Albania despite many setbacks of Socialist government among which it can be sorted out the handling of the pandemic which is getting from bad to worse in this Balkan country. /argumentum.al