Posted on 05/07/2006 8:02:01 AM PDT by knighthawk
DUBROVNIK, Croatia - US Vice President Dick Cheney on Sunday voiced his country’s support for Albania, Croatia and Macedonia in their bid to join NATO, saying they would “help rejuvenate” the 57-year-old Alliance.
“The Adriatic Charter countries have expressed the desire for joining the transatlantic community and we support that,” Cheney said before meeting the premiers of the three countries in the southern Adriatic town of Dubrovnik.
“We understand the desire to join NATO and the European community. We also believe that it’s very important for both NATO and the EU to take in the new members,” Cheney said. He spoke before meeting his Croatian host Prime Minister Ivo Sanader and his Albanian and Macedonian counterparts Sali Berisha and Vlado Buckovski.
“You who aspire to join these organisations help rejuvenate (them) and help us re-dedicate ourselves to the basic and fundamental values of freedom and democracy,” he stressed.
Cheney also praised the three countries for their cooperation alongside NATO and US forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Croatia, Macedonia and Albania signed an “Adriatic Charter” with the United States in May 2003 designed to facilitate their integration into the North Atlantic Alliance. The three countries hope to join by 2008.
The three premiers stressed that NATO membership figured among the top priorities for their countries.
“Membership in NATO is a strategic goal of my nation. Croatia is aware that peace and security can not be achieved in isolation,” Sanader said before the meeting.
Berisha echoed Sanader’s view, stressing that NATO membership was his country’s “top priority.”
After the talks with Cheney Sanader labelled his visit as ”important support to Croatia, but also Albania and Macedonia, on our path towards the EU and NATO.”
Sanader also voiced hope that during a NATO summit, to be held in Riga in November, the three countries would be given a more precise timetable for their membership in the Alliance.
“We voiced our expectations that during the November summit in Riga a clear signal would be sent ... to our countries that in some time, rather soon and better sooner than later, we will become full-fledged NATO members,” Sanader told journalists after the meeting.
Fight against terrorism
The three Balkan countries also voiced their readiness to take part in the global fight against terrorism.
On Saturday Cheney met Croatian President Stipe Mesic and Sanader.
Cheney’s talks with Mesic focused on Zagreb’s bid to join NATO and the fight against terrorism.
Croatia, like other Balkan states, is anxious to demonstrate to NATO and the European Union that it meets their standards.
Cheney was due originally to leave on Monday at the end of a trip which has taken him to Lithuania and Kazakhstan. But his press spokeswoman said Saturday his return to Washington had been moved forward to Sunday. The change did not curtail the talks foreseen here.
Croatia, Albania and Macedonia are members of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme.
The programme was set up after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of communism in central and eastern Europe, to establish military cooperation between the former Soviet bloc states and NATO countries, together with European neutrals.
But public support in Croatia for NATO membership is very low, with only 29 percent in favour, according to a recent opinion poll.
Ping
Might want to rethink that NATO thing.
They're the only Muslim country to send troops to Iraq.
That doesn't answer the other points. Saudi arabia and pakistan are also "allies" in the WOT and officially denounce islamic terrorism, but there are elements in each that support the jihadis, which couldn't happen without official knowledge. The albanian government supports the kla and the invasion and ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.
Invasion? Get your facts straight boy. Albania NEVER invaded Serbia.
As another Free-poster eloquently put it:
"Very soon these quaint and colorful tribesmen will control the heroin and hooker traffic in all of Iraq. The insurgents will find their vehicles and weapons stolen, their sisters in brothels from Oslo to Dubai, and their territory declared, as is most of the known world, part of The "Greater Albania". Get ready for the Pax Albanica. Oh! Snap! ;p
What do you call the kla in kosovo, boy?
KLA is a terrorist organization, but they are Kosovars within Kosovo, not from Albania. What's up with the boy comment? Get your facts straight next time
What's with the "boy" comment? Can dish it out but can't take it, huh?
The kla has training camps in albania and is supported by the albanian government with the express purpose of joining kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and other former Yugoslavian states with greater albania under muslim rule.
You called me boy. Go back and look at your posts.
This is your post #6 in which you called me boy first. If you consider me a boy you must be an old timer.
"You called me boy. Go back and look at your posts."
So you call me boy, I respond in kind and you take offense without defending your position. Hmmm....
I rest my case.
More joiners to an outdated organization. Unless they want to be a counterweight to a resurgent Russia or defend Europe against the Chicoms, they ought to just disband. We can certainly coordinate anti-terror policies without NATO.
I will throw you a semantic bone, though. I should have said that part of Serbia was invaded and ethnically cleansed.
9/11/01 Part of America attacked!
11/7/41 Japanese attack part of America!
9/1/39 German juggernaught rolls through part of Poland!
I don't have time to tutor you. Please by a factual book as suggested. fine'
I'm quite well read, thank you. Goodbye.
If you want to figure out who invaded and killed whom it depends on which point in the last 1200 years you want to consider your starting point. But that's worthless now. I couldn't care less who invaded whom. The Albanians are proving themselves useful, the Serbs are not. That's about all that matters at this point.
As far as the religion goes, they're more atheist than anything else. All of their churches and mosques were shut down by the communists in the late 60s. They've only recently been to practice much of anything at all. They're barely religious at all, so religious extremism would be a stretch.
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