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NATO invites Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina to join PfP

29/11/2006

RIGA, Latvia -- NATO leaders wrapped up their two day summit Wednesday (November 29th) by inviting Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Montenegro and Serbia to join the Partnership for Peace Programme (PfP), considered a first step to eventual membership in the Alliance. An accompanying statement said the countries could make a "valuable contribution" to the long-term stability of the Western Balkans. For the past several months, Western officials had stressed that Serbia, in particular, had to boost war crimes co-operation -- mainly by extraditing fugitive indictee Ratko Mladic -- to be considered for PfP. The AP says Wednesday's invitation may be part of an effort to defuse the influence of nationalist hardliners, ahead of Serbia's parliamentary elections in January.

Late Wednesday, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer described the invitations as a crucial political step, aimed at bringing the whole Balkan region into the Euro-Atlantic family. He added, however, that NATO would continue to press BiH and Serbia for full war crimes co-operation. (AP, Tanjug, RTS, RTRS, CNN - 29/11/06)

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