During the second day of his visit in Washington, Minister of Internal Affairs Fatmir Xhafaj, held a meeting with Deputy Director of DEA (Anthony Williams) and his Operations Directorate team.

Minister Xhafaj made an overview of achievements in the fight against cannabis cultivation by focusing on the masses and results of 2017, which made it possible to extract the country from the map of countries which cultivate cannabis. He introduced some of the key measures programmed to guarantee this standard during 2018.

Xhafaj particularly focused on the great job done by government structures and especially the State Police, to sensitize farmers and the society as a whole, to the negative consequences of cannabis cultivation.

On the other hand, Minister Xhafaj thanked DEA for co-operation and called for an intensification of this cooperation in the future, which should focus on the exchange of information between the Albanian Police and the DEA Regional Office in Athens. The minister asked to increase the capacity of this office, having a dedicated officer for Albania, or intensifying meetings and joint operations between the Albanian Police and the DEA Regional Office in Greece.

Deputy Director of DEA and Director of Operations, Mr. William said that “The Action Plan and the “Power of Law” operation itself is the best plan ever presented by our joint partners in the fight against drug trafficking”.

He praised the government and the Albanian Ministry of Internal Affairs in the fight against drug cultivation and drug trafficking, adding that “we are ready to further enhance the cooperation between our agency and law enforcement agencies in Albania”./tvklan.al