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| A refugee woman from Ukraine with her 4-year-old child in her arms (archive) |
Armend Mehaj, minister of defense, said he met NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg.
Mehaj announced that he had communicated to Stoltenberg his willingness to host 5,000 Ukrainian refugees in Kosovo at any time. Mehaj was in Brussels for the ninth meeting of the Contact Group for the Protection of Ukraine, which was attended by 54 nations, Euronews reports.
"During his speech, Stoltenberg said, among other things, that we have no time to lose and will save lives if we act quickly. I wholeheartedly concur with this, and as a result, in addition to the meetings I had with Lieutenant General Jashari and Stolterberg, the Minister of Defense of Croatia, the Minister of Defense of Latvia, the Minister of Defense of Albania, and the Ambassador of the Republic of Albania to NATO, Visho Ajazi Lika, I reiterated our readiness as the Government and as the Minister of Defense to accommodate 5,000 Ukrainian refugees at any time and to support the Ukrainian military through training in demining, search and rescue, "We understand the struggle of the Ukrainian people for freedom, as well as the irreplaceable role of the international factor in this, the help that can save lives and put an end to terror, as a state that has faced such an aggressor with an occupying and genocidal mentality," he writes.
He added that Kosovo will provide "every help that is within our capacities" to the Ukrainian people and stands with them.