A successful visit in Washington…

A successful visit in Washington…
By Eduard Zaloshnja

This article has been written for Albanian Free Press newspaper and www.afp.al

Late one evening, I received a call from New York–it was the Spring of 2005, when I still lived in Washington. This call was from an old friend, with whom we had been part of the 300 or so pioneers who founded the Democratic Party. After leaving the DP, he had become one of the main leaders of a small coalition. He asked me to set him up a few meetings in Washington and an interview at the Voice of America.

Thus, I negotiated a meeting between him and another leader of the coalition with a State Department official who covered Western Balkans and the US Congress committee covering the former communist countries. I also manage to secure him a live interview at the Voice of America.

In the meetings with the US officials, my friend, who speaks fluent English, for someone who has not lived in an English speaking country, made a decent presentation of the problems of the coalition that he represented and Albania in general. Meanwhile, the other leader, who couldn’t speak English, often said “yes” instead of saying “no” and vice versa. The US officials were attentive to my friend, they kept notes and promised that they would convey the concerns voiced in the meeting to higher instances.

At the end of his visit to Washington, my friend and his colleague also gave an interview at the Voice of America. In that interview, my friend’s colleague, the one who didn’t speak any English, declared that they “had a very successful visit to Washington, where they had been given strong support by the US State Department and US Congress”.

The nice journalist of the Voice of America asked my friend’s colleague about the officials that he had met in Washington and what they had told him. But, during this interview, my friend mainly focused on the problems that related to the Albanian election that year.

I don’t know what the effect of that interview was on the Albanian voters then, but what I know for sure is that neither the US State Department, nor the US Congress committee on former communist countries, issued any public statements in support of the small coalition that my friend represented. The US embassy to Tirana either didn’t issue any declarations affected by the meetings held in Washington.

In the 2005 election, the coalition which my friend was part of received only 3.82% of the ballots, not being able to exceed the then electoral threshold (4%), needed to win a seat in parliament. In retrospective, I can say that his visit in Washington and my efforts to set up some meetings and an interview there, were in vain. However, these efforts were needed.

Coming back to the present days, Basha has recently held a visit to Washington, where he met several officials, the names of whom he didn’t mention. Then, he gave an interview for the Voice of America and the journalist interviewing him didn’t ask him about the people that he had met and what they had told him. However, during this interview, Basha declared that he had obtained strong support about his party’s action by senior Congress officials and close collaborators of Trump’s administration.

Let us wait and see if Basha’s visit to Washington will have the same “successful effect” that my friend’s visit in 2005 had.

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Note: The stances expressed in the Opinion section do not necessarily represent the editorial line of Albanian Free Press

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