CROAT AMERICANS TELL CONGRESS CROATIA READY FOR NATO

WASHINGTON, April 9 (Hina) - The National Federation of Croat Americans (NFCA) on Friday welcomed the recent adoption of a resolution by Congress supporting Croatia's admission to NATO. In a letter to Congressmen, the federation said Croatia had already demonstrated it was willing and ready to enter the Alliance.#L# The NFCA welcomed the adoption of Resolution 558 in which the U.S. House of Representatives last week called on NATO members' leaders to agree at NATO's June summit in Istanbul to consider enlargement to Croatia, Albania and Macedonia not later than 2007. The letter NFCA president John Kraljic sent to Congressmen underlines that Croatia has shown more than sufficiently that it is willing, ready and able to join NATO and assume the commitments admission entails. Kraljic said in the letter Croatia was better prepared for admission than many former communist countries which joined the Alliance last week. He went on to say that unfair standards were being applied to Croatia, standards he said were not demanded of other East European countries to join NATO, and that Croatia's political and economic stability provided a strong foundation for admission. The NFCA is the umbrella organisation of Croat Americans which has about 120,000 members. (Hina) ha