Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will donate a "significant" number of kamikaze drones to Albania, the country's Prime Minister Edi Rama said on Thursday.
"This is a gift that comes as a strong message from the Republic of Turkey that Albania cannot be hit," Rama said at a joint press conference during a one-day visit by Erdogan, who inaugurated a large Turkish-funded mosque in Tirana yesterday.
The so-called kamikaze drone is a roving munition that circles its target before crashing at high speed and detonating on impact, according to Reuters. A spokesman for the Albanian government could not provide additional details on the number or type of drones when asked by the British agency's journalists.
Rama also said that the acquisition of a certain number of Turkish kamikaze drones does not mean that "Albania will attack anyone".
Most countries in the Western Balkans, including Albania, have begun to modernize their outdated armies after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Reuters points out.
Albania and Turkey are members of NATO. The government in Tirana has already acquired a fleet of Turkish Bajraktar drones for reconnaissance and attack.
Erdogan will leave Tirana for Serbia, to which Turkey returned in 2017, when Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and his Turkish counterpart "concluded reconciliation", reminds the AFP agency.
"Erdogan's visit improved relations with Serbia," reports Vuk Vuksanović, an analyst at the Belgrade Center for Security Policy (BCBP), and adds that since then, "the Balkans have been a real success story of Turkish diplomacy."
"I would not be surprised if a military agreement is concluded," Vuksanovic said, adding that he expects the three main topics of the talks in Belgrade to be "military cooperation, the position of Turkish companies (in Serbia) and Belgrade's desire to convince Ankara to reduce its support for Kosovo." .
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