During his recent meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, U.S. President George Bush said that it was in the world's interest to have Croatia in the European Union an NATO and announced that at the forthcoming NATO summit in the Latvian capital Riga this November he would work on support for Croatia to be invited in 2008 to join the alliance and the EU.
It is realistic that Croatia will receive an invitation in 2008 and that, after ratification by member states, it will enter NATO in 2009, Bradkte said.
Asked whether the U.S. support for NATO's enlargement included only Croatia or whether another two aspirants Albania and Macedonia can expect invitation cards in 2008, Bradtkle said he believed this referred only to Croatia.
We would like Albania and Macedonia to join NATO and we hope they will make enough progress by 2008 to be to be able to join. However, during the talks in the Oval Office, Bush explicitly spoke about Croatia, the U.S. ambassador said.
He added that Washington wants Croatia to be the leader in the region and in solving outstanding issues, such as the final status of Kosovo.