You still have a lot to do, but you can count on the Alliance's support, said John Colston, NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defense and Policy Planning.
He was speaking at Crnomerec barracks, giving a talk for Croatian Army officers and non-commissioned officers on NATO's transformation and the challenges it faces.
Colston said NATO was no longer faced with threats of conventional wars but with terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction. This calls for a series of political and military reforms aimed at increasing the operability and equipment of NATO countries as well as at encouraging cooperation both within and outside the Alliance, he added.
World crises can no longer be settled in the conventional military fashion now that peace, security and development are linked more than ever before, Colston said, mentioning Afghanistan and Kosovo, where he said NATO and the international community were trying to bring peace and security as well as create conditions for sustainable life after wars and ethnic conflicts.
Speaking of enlargement, Colston reiterated the messages from the last NATO summit in Riga, where presidents and prime ministers of member-countries encouraged the efforts of candidate-countries, including Croatia, and guaranteed that readiness for accession would be evaluated by each country's achievements.
Colston praised Zagreb's progress in modernising its military, but pointed to the need of doing a lot more to win public support for NATO accession, of raising funds for defence to two percent of GDP, of continuing with the defence reform, and of intensifying the return of minority refugees and their property.