Director of the Soros-founded Open Society Initiative for Europe, Goran Buldioski, issued a reply against the “conspiracy theories on Capitol Hill” in US magazine Foreign Policy. He calls upon Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to ignore the letter of six US senators, in which they call upon the Secretary to investigate links between the Soros Foundation and US embassies in Macedonia and Albania.
His response also touches upon the specific role that the Soros Foundation has played in Albania:
Tillerson should ignore the letter, because there’s nothing to investigate. In addition to being littered with inaccuracies about the foundations’ work, the senators echo Kremlin talking points and support the agenda of corrupt and undemocratic elements in the region. […]
Contrary to the allegations leveled in the letter by unnamed “respected leaders from Albania,” the Open Society Foundation for Albania has never accepted or administered USAID funding. It did not create the Strategic Document for Albanian Judicial Reform as the letter claims; Albania’s multiparty parliamentary commission for judicial reform did. The foundation supported the process by funding the commission and its technical support team, but had no input in the document. The senators appear to have fallen victim to a political exercise to discredit the judicial reform process and the prime minister — ironic given their concerns about stability in the country. […]
The Open Society Foundation for Albania has spent more than $57 million building 275 schools and kindergartens across the country. Seventy percent of its population has benefited from these schools, and children are still educated in them. Open Society’s internet program opened up Albania to the outside world, setting up the country’s first internet antenna in 1997 and helping to deliver free online services to libraries, universities, and NGOs.
