"Croatia wants to carry out reforms and meet political criteria in order to join NATO, which is no longer a military organisation as during the Cold War, but an organisation sharing common values, freedom, democracy, protection of human and minority rights, the rule of law and market economy," Sanader said, adding that membership in NATO was one of Croatia's two priorities.
Minuto-Rizzo, who visited Zagreb as part of a tour of NATO candidate countries, said the Croatian government had the task to explain to Croatian citizens that NATO today was a political organisation placing emphasis on partnership and provision of security, with democratic means and through consensus.
Minuto-Rizzo's visit comes after Croatia presented its Fourth Annual National Programme 2005-2006 of the Membership Action Plan (MAP) at the NATO headquarters in Brussels in late October. MAP is NATO's programme intended for countries aspiring to join the alliance.
Deputy heads of missions of NATO member countries at the time positively assessed all aspects of Croatia's fourth annual MAP cycle and congratulated it on the recently launched EU entry talks.
Minuto-Rizzo said that Croatia had made significant progress, but he would not speak about any dates of admission to NATO, saying only that this was a technical rather than political question.