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Adriatic Three hopeful to join NATO next year: official |
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08:49, July 10, 2007 |
Albania, Croatia and Macedonia are equally hopeful in getting invited to join NATO at the club's next summit in Bucharest, Romania in the early spring of next year, one NATO official said on Monday.
"Of course the three countries in the Balkans are at various stages in meeting NATO standards, but all of them are working hard and doing well," James Apparthurai, NATO's spokesman, said.
He also warned that there is no guarantee that any of them or all of them would be invited to join the military club. But he also said that Croatia, one of the Adriatic Three, has clearly made enormous progress in its bid to join the club.
Albania, Croatia and Macedonia signed the Adriatic Charter with the U.S. in 2003, in a bid to facilitate their entry into the alliance. On June 10, U.S. President George W. Bush said that his country strongly supports the three countries' bid to join NATO during a meeting with the prime ministers of Albania, Croatia and Macedonia on his whirlwind visit of Albania.
NATO secretary general warned at the end of last month that the nations must first meet the standards of accession, noting that the countries are at different stages of development.
"Each country will be judged by its own merits. There will be no any package," said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in response to a question at the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC)'s security forum in Ohrid, Macedonia.
Source: Xinhua
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