Albania, Croatia ministers at NATO meeting

TIRANA, Dec 3 – Foreign ministers of Albania and Croatia, Lulzim Basha and Gordan Jandrokovic, participated for the first time in the meeting of NATO heads of diplomacy in Brussels.
Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in his speech that Tirana and Zagreb were invited to join the Atlantic Alliance summit in Bucharest in April, but the process of accession was not yet complete. It lacks the parliamentary ratification from 26 NATO member countries.
According to diplomatic sources, the path should be completed by the next summit in Strasbourg-Kehl next April that will also celebrate NATO’s 60th anniversary.
The NATO meeting summed up the results of 2008 activities, including a decision on how the Alliance intends to build relations with Russia henceforth.
NATO foreign ministers were also to decide whether they were ready to promote a resumption of the normal functioning of the Russia-NATO Council at ambassadorial level.
The agenda of the NATO ministerial meeting also included items concerning an estimate of the Euro-Atlantic prospects of Georgia and Ukraine, an analysis of the situation in Afghanistan and Kosova, and a discussion of the anti-piracy operation being conducted by the ships of the Alliance off the Somali coast.