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Thursday May 31 10:07 AM ET
NATO MPs Urge Enlargement, End to Balkan Bloodshed
By Burton Frierson
VILNIUS (Reuters) - NATO (news - web sites) parliamentarians, meeting for the first
time on former Soviet territory, urged the alliance on Thursday to continue expanding
and called on Balkan nationalists to end the bloodshed in their region.
The members of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly said the alliance's previous expansion
in 1999 -- the first since the end of the Cold War and which brought in the Czech
Republic, Hungary and Poland -- had been a success and enhanced European security.
In a resolution, they called on the alliance to issue invitations to accession
negotiations to any European democracy seeking membership, which meets entry criteria
and to do this no later than NATO's 2002 summit in Prague.
Parliamentary Assembly President Rafael Estrella also called on President Bush (news -
web sites) to use his trip to Europe in June to signal his commitment enlargement.
He said Bush's visit would give other NATO governments a chance to add substance to
their rhetoric of an open door policy concerning future enlargement.
``This means giving serious consideration to the merits of candidates so that the next
members can be identified in Prague and invitations issued -- invitations that should
include a Baltic dimension,'' Estrella said.
Estrella said earlier this week Baltic state Lithuania, who hosted the spring session
of the assembly as an associate member, is seen as one of the leading candidates.
The nine candidates -- Albania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia -- opened individual negotiations with NATO at the end
of March.
RUSSIANS STAY AT HOME
Russia's associate delegation pulled out of the assembly meeting in protest at its
staging on ex-Soviet terrain.
Russia, which dominated the Soviet Union before its disintegration a decade ago,
objects to Lithuania and other ex-Soviet states bidding to join NATO.
Lithuanian officials worry that Russia's objections might lead to NATO weakening its
resolve to accept all qualified candidates and refuse them entry, draw out their
accession bids or offer them a watered-down version of membership.
At this week's assembly, the ex-Soviet Baltic states and the U.S. made sure the final
declaration stated no outside country should be given veto rights over NATO
enlargement.
In a separate declaration, the assembly welcomed reform in Yugoslavia after the
October fall of nationalist autocrat Slobodan Milosevic (news - web sites).
It suggested formal ties between Belgrade and NATO under its Partnership for Peace
program but that conditions should be attached, such as cooperation with the
Dutch-based U.N. tribunal which pursues Balkan war criminals.
The resolution warns ethnic Albanians in old federal Yugoslavia that violence by
nationalist groups in their midst has eroded the international sympathy they built up
during the 1999 Kosovo crisis.
It also calls on Macedonia to ``address the political and economic grievances'' of its
minority Albanians, on whose behalf guerrillas are fighting government forces
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