U.S. says Albania not yet ready for NATO

TIRANA, Nov. 7 – U.S. Ambassador to NATO Victoria Nuland said Wednesday that Albania was nto yeat ready to become a full NATO member and that it had to make strenuous efforts to achieve the required standards until April next year.
Ambassador Nuland was on a visit to Albania to meet with all top officials in the country.
She came with a U.S. interagency delegation from different departments “to make decisions about whether Albania is ready for NATO.”
Nuland said that no decisions would be made by any NATO countries until some time next year and they would hold a series of “intensive consultations on the progress that Albania has already made and the further progress we would like to see on the road to the Bucharest Summit in April.”
Nuland thanked Albania’s contribution to the world fight aggiasnt terrorism through the participation with army units in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Iraq.
She said their message was that though Albania has made a huge mount of progress, as we head towards the Bucharest summit, now it is the time to keep the foot on the reform gas pedal and keep rolling, she said.
“We talked specifically about the need to strengthen judicial reform and the fight against crime and corruption. We talked about the continuing process of electoral reform. We talked about the need for continuing progress on trafficking in persons.”
Nuland said she had also talked about the strong role that Albania was playing in the Balkan neighborhood in promoting peace and security, and to encourage the strong and responsible position that Albania has taken with regard to Kosovo and other parts of the neighborhood.
“We leave Tirana Šwith a strong message that neither the Government of the United States nor any other NATO ally has made any decisions yet so it is the time to accelerate reform efforts.”
“Our message today was that with hard work we believe Albania could be ready. She’s not ready today,” she said. “We hope that April is the time, but it is up to you, not to us.”
“The Alliance as a whole will not make a decision until the day of the summit, April 3, 2008. And it takes 26 positive votes.”