BA HAPUR LKAN: What you should know about today's summit in Ohrid and messages for Kosovo

At today's summit in the Western Balkans, Albania, Montenegro, Northern Macedonia, Bosnia and Serbia participated.

In a direct connection from Sarajevo, there was also the American emissary for the Western Balkans, Mr. Gabriel Escobar.

Below, you find talks summed up by the Open Balkans summit, held in Ohrid.

Escobar: US Supports Open Balkans means that Kosovo should join

Gabriel Escobar, the American emissary for the Western Balkans, has said the United States of America supports the Open Balkans. He has said this is not a political but an economic project. He has said that all six Western Balkan states should become part of the initiative.

“The United States supports the Open Balkans. This is based on several points, working in regional economic co-operation, through business, trade. The biggest markets are the European ones. We need to work on greater European integration. The Open Balkans initiative is just one of these initiatives, and we support any initiative that offers the region. If it succeeds, it should be open to everyone. Any Initiative It should involve the six states at the same level. It's an excellent initiative, coming at a very important moment for the Western Balkans”, Escobar said, follows Periscopi.

I have some proposals for our friends: Not to duplicate things, but to have a good integration. Have an institutional development plan. The priority of the Western Balkans is to increase economic power, but we have another opportunity, such as increasing conditions for foreign economic investment”, he said, led Periscopi.

The possibilities of the Western Balkans are huge, there is a very good geographic position, there are amazing resources. We support the Western Balkans and we want to help you build the Western Balkans. BP has potential to be the centre of reproductive energy. It has the capacity to be the natural gas center”, he said.

What did Eddie Rama say?

“This is an opportunity to talk about the Balkans as open as the Balkans are, we cannot come to a meeting to talk as we are used to when we go to Brussels.

We will talk very openly and have to keep the characteristic of this region without fearing that we can have more problems than the reason to be united.

I want to remember that we meet today for the first time in an open Balkan Sam after the war started in Ukraine.

I want to tell everyone, that unlike some of them, the war in Ukraine makes the open Balkans a greater necessity than for this sudden war to begin.

Last night I had the pleasure of meeting you here, on the eve of Summit, Ambassador Chris Hill. One of the veterans of American diplomacy, a deep connoisseur of the region that has served in Tirana in dramatic times, and today serves in Belgrade.

I believe Ambassador Hill with his presence here is one of the most reliable witnesses to the need for the Open Balkans. He's here to support the Open Balkans and this for us, for me personally, is very encouraging.

While I am very happy that Dritan here today is also with us, Montenegro's prime minister, as well as Zoran I am from Bosnia, as I am happy that they are the irreplaceable partners of our journey, Commissioner Varheley and our friend Gabriel Escobar, who is present through the screen.

But beyond all our friends and partners that are very important to us, the Open Balkans is important to our people, for the common space in which our children are born, and tomorrow they will take the fate of our countries.

Albania's Albanians, where there were over 60 percent in support of the Open Balkans, a figure exceeding the government's support today, and I am convinced it will be higher.

We have not expected the war in Ukraine to know the special relationship Serbia has with Russia. We have not expected this war, to know that there is a special connection between Russia and Serbia.

We have not expected the war in Ukraine to know that there is an unresolved conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, that we have all known.

But between standing on the back of the future or looking back from the future, we have chosen this second one.

We are here today because we want to keep going to the future without turning our eyes on the problems that are still unequivocal but convinced that problems are solved only if we get closer.

Unless day after day, we understand how important we are to each other.

Chris Hill told me that they dropped two atomic bombs in Japan and today one of the most important political alliances in the world is that between the United States and Japan, behind two atomic bombs and orders where Japan is today, if it stood on its back all day towards the United States and on their knees to cry two atom bombs.

Serbia in the Open Balkans has taken over implementation of agreements. Is it unconvincing what would happen if we didn't get that amount of wheat in Ukraine today through deals, even though there is war there.

What would happen today? The most rhetoric of the conflict, or the call to go to war.

We are, today, in a knife blade, as far as energy is concerned, that everyone, in all of Europe, across the world, but we are much more vulnerable than many others in while on the horizon there is a winter where the problem will not be the price of energy that will continue to grow, the problem is that there will be no energy to buy.

We don't have the luxury of standing on our backs and dealing with rhetoric.

Again, as with wheat, how true it is that the Open Balkans are neither mine nor Vuciqi's, nor Kovacevski's, nor Dritan's, the Open Balkans are of Albanian farmers, of our people”, Rama said.

Hugg from Ohrid: Thank the United States that supports the Open Balkans, we have no intention toward anyone except to be friends

Aleksandar Vucciqi has thanked the United States for supporting the Open Balkans initiative. He has said it is an initiative for co-operation among the countries of the region.

This is the initiative of people from the Balkans, of those who have realized that they have to connect and that they can solve their problems themselves and everything we've done in the economy and everything we've done for our citizens and there's no more important to them than the economy, we almost have no mutual problems. We managed to solve some problems that were ahead of us 5 to 60 years ago. We don't have any demands on anyone except to be friends, to cooperate in the interests of our citizens”, Vuciqi p said.Wake up.

I have a lot of enthusiasm, a lot of hopes and wishes to do great things. Thank you Escobar, United States supporting this” initiative, Vuciqi said.

Abazovic: I hope Albin Kurti joins next time in the open Balkans

Montenegro's Prime Minister, Dritan Abazovic, has said from Ohrid that he hopes that next time, in the open Balkans, he did not say so by name but also means Albin Kurti.

He has said that initiatives to do together and work are always welcome for him.

Abazovqi said it is time to become a re-ordination of the Western Balkans in terms of economic development.

We sit here, five of us here, I hope next time we will be six more people, regardless of the initiative, from the country from the time. Six people to sit here and talk about our citizens.

I am sure that the message of the EU will be much different, even for those who contest every step of the open Balkans that is wrong and this part of the world, without considering the difficulties it has faced, belongs to the big European family.

We need to change our behavior, to some extent our thinking. The idea is to promote something new, to make a re-ordination of the Western Balkans”, Abazovic said.

Varhely: Open Balkans Must Continue Good Possible for Acceleration of EU Integration

European Union Enlargement Commissioner Oliver Varhely has said that the Open Balkans initiative is a good opportunity for the Western Balkans to speed up the road towards EU integration.

In his words, during the Ohrid summit in northern Macedonia, Varhely said that the Open Balkans must continue, especially under current circumstances, following Russian aggression in Ukraine.

The Open Balkans must continue and I am pleased to see today how the agreements are signed. We also see the results that preliminary agreements testified by facilitating people's lives. This is very important because of the situation we find ourselves in the war in Ukraine. Now more than ever we have to work together and help each other”, he said.

Open Balkan support also offered US representative for the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar, but said the same should include the region's six states at the same level. /Dafina Demaku/ PERISCOP