U.S. Endorses Future NATO Expansion
10 April 2007
New law authorizes $42 million in security assistance
Washington -– President Bush has signed a new law extending U.S. military assistance to aspiring NATO members Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Macedonia and Ukraine.
The NATO Freedom Consolidation Act of 2007 urges admission of the five countries into the alliance and authorizes new funding for military training and equipment for them, the White House said in a statement issued April 10.
At the 2006 NATO Summit in Riga, Latvia, the leaders of the 26-member alliance declared their intention to extend membership invitations at their next summit in 2008 to candidates that have successfully met democratic and military qualifications. (See related article.)
“Since the end of the Cold War, NATO has been evolving to meet the new security needs of the 21st century,” Indiana Senator Richard Lugar, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said when he introduced the legislation February 6.
“If NATO is to continue to be the pre-eminent security alliance and serve the defense interests of its membership, it must continue to evolve and that evolution must include enlargement,” he said.
The countries will qualify for up to $42 million in aid under the NATO Participation Act of 1994, a law created to facilitate U.S. support for NATO membership, as well as security assistance to be allocated under the 2008 budget.
In a March 16 statement, Lugar praised Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, which have participated since 2002 in NATO’s Membership Action Plan, where they have made progress on a series of democratic, economic, and military reforms required before joining the alliance. The three countries also have contributed a total of 300 troops to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
Georgia and Ukraine are participants in the alliance’s Partnership for Peace program and have sought to join, but have yet to receive a Membership Action Plan from NATO. But both countries face several significant hurdles to NATO membership, not least of which are security concerns from neighboring Russia. (See related article.)
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an April 10 roundtable with foreign journalists that Moscow should support its neighbors as they seek closer ties with the United States and Europe. “We believe very strongly that a network of strong democratic, independent states that are growing and prospering and therefore, stable are going to be beneficial to Russia, not harmful to Russia.”
Both Georgia and Ukraine have contributed to the Multinational Force-Iraq, with Ukraine completing its role in December 2005 and Georgia currently seeking to increase its current contingent of 850 troops to 2,400.
Lugar praised them for “remarkable progress,” and said that the legislation would provide incentives to Georgia and Ukraine as they continue undertaking necessary reforms.
“I believe that eventual NATO membership for these five countries would be a success for Europe, NATO, and the United States by continuing to extend the zone of peace and security,” Lugar said.
The text of the April 10 statement and a fact sheet on the 2006 NATO Summit are available from the White House. A transcript of Rice’s meeting with foreign journalists is available on the State Department Web site.
(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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