Interview/ Merro Base: Good thing Albin Kurt didn't keep his promises, his ideas are chaotic

Mr. Base sharply criticises the country's prime minister, Albin Kurti, saying that “has helped the Special Court give reasons why KLA leaders” should not be freed. He counts his failures as well.

Among other things, Kosovo's process connoisseur speaks of the opposition's role, without forgetting either President Vjosa Osmani as Albania's striker, nor the latest event with the scandalous analysis of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts.

INT PLOSE ERVIS:

Periscope: The year 2022 characterised Kosovo with numerous developments, didn't miss meetings with the Serbian side, tensions and protests within the country. As a good connoisseur of the processes in Kosovo, how would you assess the year that is going under Kurt's rule?

Merro Base: The year you're going was a real picture of what it really is, the fate of populist politicians when they govern. I see two positive things related to governance. The first achievement is that government has not kept its promises. To agree I'm not worried Albin Kurti didn't keep his promises. It would be worse to keep them. His ideas for Kosovo's development are chaotic, without any real support to Kosovo's economic and financial reality and the economic model of the market. In this regard, I consider it positive that he has not insisted on putting his ideas as an opposition to him. On the other hand, it is harmful that Albin Kurti is trying to provoke once without a fight with his opposition failures, complicated by the idea that he must be the victim of an international plot against him. Being victimized once by a collapse of power after the U.S. crash, now every time it fails it seeks to raise tensions and save it by bringing it down. In fact, it must not be overthrown, but it must be destroyed as a close, superficial politician and without a lasting vision for Kosovo's future. And this is serious. Amid the collapse and collapse of a destructive politician there is a big difference in the Balkans. Politicians who succumb to conflict with Western politics in the Balkans become popular. Unfortunately and inside Albanians. We have Sali Berisha in similar Albania. Their collapse must come from the daily and ruthless confrontation with their ideas in front of Albanian society to prove to everyone what they are worth. And in this respect even this year was a good year against Albin Kurt and the pro-creating of a more real perception of Kosovo for him.

Periscope: What are the three failures and three achievements of Kurti Government this year?

Merro Base: Failure to manage the situation in the north of the country, failure in reports with Western diplomacy, and failure to fight corruption in the country are three obvious failures. As for the three achievements of the government, Kurti, I don't want to become very cynical, but the first most important achievement is that he has put the press under control by detecting their economic resources, the second achievement is that he has helped the Special Court to give reasons why the KLA leaders should not be freed, and the third achievement is that he has gained independence from Albania by treating him as an enemy state. These are achievements that Albin Kurti has desired. Since I don't live in Kosovo, I don't feel any other achievements.

Periscope:  Prime Minister Kurti several times rejected US and EU demands, how do you see that Kurti's attitude towards international partners, think Kosovo's reports were damaged with them, and why was Kurt so stubborn towards them, let's say, first, because then we saw him dropping in anyway?

Merro Base: The refusal of US and Western recommendations as a whole to postpone formal conflict for license, led Serbs to leave Kosovo institutions creating a dangerous precedent that will cost Kosovo during any further step until the correction of this open wound. This rejection also brought conflict over the imposed elections in a territory that does not recognise the authority of the Kosovo government and barricades that practically separate Kosovo's north from Kosovo. I don't know what more serious costs Kosovo should pay for a prime minister's ego.

Periscope:  In recent months the Franco-German plan has circulated in several versions, but no official version was ever released. How do you see the versions that were circulated in the media? Is Kosovo in the best interests of such a plan as is being promoted?

Merro Base: We should not become allologists and study the letters and expectations of a plan. The important thing is that the plan creates a security framework for mutual respect of the borders between Serbia and Kosovo and unblocks Kosovo's isolation efforts. This is enough for Kosovo to deal with the forest, not with branches, as the government is trying to deal with. It's a US-backed plan, and that's enough to make sure of it than Kurt's ideas of permanent conflict.

Periscope: How do you see the Kosovo opposition?

Merro Base: The opposition in Kosovo has the complex of the reformist parties, and as such, they behave with great accountability to issues dealing with the future of the state. The word comes to Krasniqi giving Kurti support for the barricades, without asking who created the problem, Abdidjik reproves how it should become constructive with the US and the West, Limaj or Haradinaj encourage him as warriors etc. So there's a constructive approach which is politically incorrect. I'm not saying to behave like Albin Kurti once, who didn't even know the state of Kosovo, but doesn't have to give oxygen to a government when she is the creator of the problem. It's another thing if Kosovo is under an aggression not because of the government or its mistakes. Recent situations have been situations created by the confusion of government policy and that confusion needs answers and politically.

Periscope: Kosovo has not gained any recognition during these two years, how do you see Kosovo's foreign policy? Many Kosovo analysts have even assessed that it is Albanian prime minister, Mr. Edi Rama, the one who is performing the role of Kosovo foreign minister? How do you evaluate both?

Merro Base: Kosovo recognitions have been blocked by Serbia's aggressive campaign. So the Franco-German plan has a very positive dimension. I don't think Edi Rama should take up the role of Kosovo's foreign minister, even though Albania has the obligation to be in step with Kosovo on every road. But the Kosovo government and especially the foreign ministry and the president have hostile approaches to Albania. Sad to say, the Kosovo Foreign Ministry has grown up in Tirana, having lunch every Sunday with Nexmije Hoxha until 1990, while now refusing and welcoming Albanian diplomats in the West in joint activities on behalf of a poisoning approach to the Albanian government.

Vjosa Osmani has also turned it into popular sport so that it first attacks Albania then Serbia. This is harmful for Kosovo, not for Albania. They neither take them seriously nor know who they are in Albania. But in Kosovo they create a grim feeling because they create the perception that Albania has abandoned them. It's actually the opposite. Albanian diplomats are voluntarily and Kosovo diplomats, and no one can find a single case for an Albanian diplomat to have done harm to Kosovo and no longer use the language of the president or Kosovo foreign minister against Albania.

Periscope: In last year's speech, President Osmani sparked reactions, for in one of the sentences, she said that the time of border trade has passed by by alluding to President Thaci's earlier idea. How do you assess this record of President Osmani?

Merro Base: Kosovo has not had any time when it has released borders. The only case when borders are endangered are barricades that were erected because of Vjosa Osmani politics and Albin Kurti. Albin Kurti and Vjosa Osmani are tasked with being Kosovo's “guards for representing the state of Kosovo. And we in Albania have a proverb saying that the bad dog's <x2 to bring the wolf to the station”. They almost brought Serbia to Kosovo. But fortunately, this uprising ended West and mainly U.S.A. It is the same US that Osmani claims he has wanted to split Kosovo's borders in 2018.

Periscope: Have Kosovo-Kosovo relations strengthened- Albania over time under the Kurti government and if so, how? If not, why?

Merro Base: Reports between Albania and Kosovo unfortunately do not depend on governments, as there are no trade or economic reports that could influence the Kosovo government or Albania. Sadly, reports on Albania - Kosovo continue to remain human reports rather than government reports. Albania has an insignificant economic balance with Kosovo and a market orientation of its products that has nothing to do with Kosovo. Kosovo too. It has 70 per cent of the market with Serbia. Politically, reports between Kurti and Rama are frozen, and poisoned by a megalomane trend by Albin Kurti to publicly intervene in Albania's political life against the Rama government. I remind you that in the exchange of 2018-2019, at the height of a protest of very charming anti-government students, Albin Kurti came to rally in Tirana with student protesters calling for the resignation of Kosovo Minister Besa Sahin and attacking Gent Cakaj, another Kosovo minister in the government of Albania. The national union's probe suddenly became the fireman of political reports between the two countries. And he went on with the craziness of participating in elections based on the chasteness of some mitoman collaborators he has from Albania. Since then, poisoned attacks against Albanian politics have continued.

The truth is, Edi Rama has taken his aggression out of sports, not to say that he has made fun of him. But he has not mocked Kosovo. Albania's government has stayed close to Kosovo in the energy crisis, supplying it with energy and fighting in front of international diplomacy for any of its problems.

Periscope:  One of the events that made headlines at this end of the year is an analysis (if it can be assessed as such) of the Kosovo Academy of Sciences and Arts. In some parts of it, but specifically also in a chapter dedicated to Albania's policy, the factor of the Albanian state in front of Kosovo is severely hit. The most serious charge, it seems, lies in the conclusion that Albania views Kosovo as a kind of sacrifice” in some form, as the Academy's analysis implies, Kosovo's fight has not been able to have good reports with Serbia. The current Albanian prime minister, Mr. Edi Rama, President Hashim Thaci, even the leader of Albanians of Northern Macedonia, Mr. Ali Ahmeti. Have you conveyed this debate? What is your assessment of this analysis released by the Kosovo Academy institution?

Merro Base: I've seen it. The only thing I want to say is that the Kosovo Academy of Sciences suffers from <x0lavdia syndrome” of the Academy of Sciences of Serbia, an institution which is considered a hub of Serbian nationalism and of ideas of Serbia the Great. The truth is that those Serbs who have done anti-Albanian Doctrines, but and against other Balkan peoples, have given neither glory nor honor to Serbia. It is a big misunderstanding to say that since Garishan and later from Cubillovic and Andrici, Serbian academic ideas against Albanians have made Serbia greater and more proud. No. They have made it smaller, reduced, and as a territory, and shamed it in the eyes of the world. I've seen in many intellectuals in Kosovo a kind of fetishism for the Serbian Academy as the “mother of all evil” against Albanians. It's a fake myth. Serbs have had great intellectuals, but not those who have built fascist platforms on behalf of the Academy. Large intellectuals are those who think critical of the wrong policies of the state and don't put the country in a dead end.

The only advice I have for Albanian academics is not to try to imitate “lavine” that they have in their head for the Academy of Serbia and its role in Serbia's national issue. Serbia has been destroyed. That's all they've done. Fortunately these ours are not an influence on politics or society. The Academy of Sciences in Albania and Kosovo is a Soviet opposition that is based, not on competition of scientific values, but on reports with politics. It's more a social institution for better salaries in old age. They can't do harm and love.

Interviewed: Iliriana Jaylan