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NATO opens the first regional airbase in Albania

2024-01-17 09:41:18Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
NATO opens the first regional airbase in Albania
NATO opens the first regional airbase in Albania

NATO confirms for Faktoje that the Kuçova air base, an investment of 50 million euros, will be put into operation by spring. Beyond the exceeded deadlines for this investment, experts emphasize the importance that the first NATO air base in Albania will have for the security of the entire region. 

In January 2022, NATO started the reconstruction of the Kuçova airbase. The former communist-era base built with volunteer labor in 1952 will serve the Atlantic Alliance's operations seven decades later.

The decision of the North Atlantic Alliance to build the first airbase in Albania was announced in the summer of 2018. Six years later, this base, according to NATO, lacks only a few details to cut the ribbon.

"The works are expected to be completed at the end of January; the completed infrastructure will be transferred to the Ministry of Defense of Albania as soon as the final certification and commissioning is completed and accepted. This will most likely happen very soon, within the first quarter of 2024", confirms an official of the Atlantic Alliance for Facts. 

For the Ministry of Defense, the opening and inauguration of the air base in Kuçovo is closely related to two elements.

"...with the completion of the entire NATO investment as well as with the realization of a series of projects that are part of the obligations of the Albanian side as an integral part of this investment", the ministry clarifies, after a request for the right to information. 

A NATO official told Faktoje that the airbase will have multiple uses and operational advantages. 

"After completion, the base will play an important role to facilitate NATO air operations (such as the activities of the Greek and Italian air police and the support of NATO Early Warning and Air Control Forces missions over Albanian territory ), he emphasized. 

The establishment of this base 15 years after Albania joined NATO goes beyond the interest of a single country. 

"As a member state of the largest Political-Military Alliance, the Albanian state and FARSH with this investment that is being realized, will offer NATO an air base with modern infrastructure and capacities as well as contemporary standards which will possible deployment of the Alliance's air vehicles or even our air vehicles, in various situations, either for training operations or for other tasks in the interests of the Alliance", argues the Ministry of Defense

Colonel Dritan Demiraj, who previously headed the Ministry of Defense, emphasizes the importance of establishing a base for the security of the entire region.

"In my opinion, the importance of this base is great, for the reason that in addition to the American naval and air bases in Greece, this base can serve as an advanced operational base for the support of NATO forces with units of forces special, for which Albania also has NATO's SOTG for these missions" - Colonel Dritan Demiraj.

According to him, the Kuçova base can also serve for the supply of various NATO air vehicles en-route to other countries in the vicinity of the conflict sites, the organization of Air Task Forces of special units (ASOTU), means aircraft which can be in Search-Rescue missions but not only.

Another important element according to the colonel is the fact that the establishment of the base strengthens Albania's role in the Alliance, and therefore also its international political support. 

The air base of Kuçova will play an important role to facilitate the air operations of the Atlantic Alliance. 

NATO's investment of around 50 million euros in this base provided for the construction of armament depots, fuel depots, armament stations, aircraft parking, an accident and fire station, as well as the reconstruction of the runway and control tower. The works were supposed to be completed in the autumn of last year, but the deadlines were violated.

"In the first week of January, we will be ready to inaugurate the air base of Kuçova", declared the Minister of Defense Niko Peleshi, while presenting the defense budget for 2024 in the parliamentary Security Committee.

Even at the beginning of January, the Kuçova airbase was not ready for inauguration, as Minister Niko Peleshi declared./ factoje.al


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