Two years of work and 50 million euros were needed to transform the Kučova airbase into a NATO tactical base, which will be inaugurated on Monday.
In the ceremony that the Ministry of Defense will organize, two high representatives of the Alliance are invited and will speak, Stacy Cummings, the General Manager of the Agency for Support and Procurement and Lieutenant General Pablo Sánchez de Lara, who is the commander of the Combined Operation Center NATO Air Force Base in Spain.
Meanwhile, apart from the President of the Republic, Prime Minister Rama, the Minister of Defense and the two Ministers of Defense of Italy and Turkey, they will be present and will speak. After the speeches, an air show is planned where two F35, two F16 and 2 Eurofighters will fly to demonstrate the tactical and technical capacities of these military aircraft.
3 "Bajraktar" combat drones have also been deployed at the base of Kuçova, which will be used by the Albanian Armed Forces for military missions, but will also have the opportunity to be involved in police and civil operations.
The Kuçova base was built in 1955, as the first Albanian air base, and in the last 20 years it has served mainly for the training of pilots of the Armed Forces.
The return to a NATO tactical base will allow the alliance's air assets to be deployed in Kucove during strategic operations in the Western Balkans.