Prime Minister Edi Rama, during his stay in London ahead of the Berlin Process Summit, was asked if he had ever met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Rama flatly denied it, saying: "No, thank you! I haven't met."
He emphasized that Albania is a special case in relation to Russia, recalling that relations between the two countries have been frozen.
"We are the only country in all of Europe where no one has come from the Kremlin and no one from our side has gone to Moscow to visit the Kremlin. This has to do with our history. We considered them traitors, degraded, who did not deserve our society. We were the only beacon of communism in Europe," Rama said.
"Stalin has been on our boulevard longer than I have been in bronze. This created a total lack of trust."
Rama further added that Albania has never had sympathy for the Russian regime.
"We don't like Putin and the current Russia, we don't miss it. We have never been tempted by Russian oligarchs," Rama concluded.