WASHINGTON, March 22 (Hina) - The U.S.-Adriatic Charter, which should take Croatia, Macedonia and Albania to NATO, has been harmonised and should be signed in the first half of April, Croatian Ambassador to the U.S. Ivan Grdesic said
on Friday.
WASHINGTON, March 22 (Hina) - The U.S.-Adriatic Charter, which
should take Croatia, Macedonia and Albania to NATO, has been
harmonised and should be signed in the first half of April, Croatian
Ambassador to the U.S. Ivan Grdesic said on Friday. #L#
The final version of the Charter was agreed on at a working meeting
between representatives of the Croatian, Macedonian and Albanian
embassies and the State Department.
"The Charter will be signed in the second week of April. It will be
signed by the three countries' foreign ministers and U.S. State
Secretary Colin Powell," Grdesic, who represented Croatia at
yesterday's meeting, told Hina.
Once the Charter has been signed, Croatian Foreign Minister Tonino
Picula and his Albanian and Macedonian counterparts should visit
the White House and hold talks with members of the National Security
Council.
The U.S.-Adriatic Charter envisages the principles of and
obligations stemming from cooperation between the three countries
on their road to NATO. It calls for reinforcing democracy and the
rights of minorities, the prevention of terrorism, transborder
crime and weapons of mass destruction, and incites further reforms
of the three countries' armed forces and their military
cooperation.
The Charter does not impose special commitments on the three
countries but contains the general conditions required for all NATO
nations.
The document does not estimate when Croatia, Albania and Macedonia
will join the alliance but says they might become members on the
first occasion, after fulfilling all the required conditions.
Grdesic said the process envisaged by the Charter might take up to
three years.
The document's preamble says the three states will be evaluated for
NATO entry based on individual performance, a point Croatia
particularly insisted on.
"The U.S.-Adriatic Charter is the political framework of
cooperation between... Croatia, Macedonia and Albania and the
United States towards the final realisation of the notion of
integral and free Europe and integral membership of NATO," said
Grdesic.
These three states, members of the Vilnius Group, were not invited
to join NATO at a summit the alliance held in Prague last November,
but U.S. President George W. Bush and NATO Secretary-General George
Robertson vowed the resumption of the open door policy, which the
Charter formalises.
The model of the U.S.-Adriatic Charter is the Baltic Charter, which
the U.S. signed in early 1998 with Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
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