President Bush Celebrates NATO's Newest Members

President George W. Bush greets the crowd at Zagreb's St.
Mark Square, Croatia, 05 Apr 2008


April 5, 2008 - President Bush celebrates Croatia and Albania for joining NATO at the 2008 Military Alliance Summit in Bucharest, Romania. On Friday, Bush publicly announced his rejoice for NATO’s newest members. Bush stated that NATO's newest members are significant in spreading Democracy and strengthening Western military protection. Bush promised that NATO would stand by Croatia and Albania if anyone endangered them.

Bush strongly believes the newest members deserve membership because they have continuously shown great contributions to NATO. Croatia and Albania have been very cooperative in NATO's support regarding the advancement of freedom and democracy while facing current political challenges. Their efforts in sending troops to Iraq and Afghanastan demostrated their profound committment to peace and security. Also, Craotia and Albania accession to NATO is marked as the sixth round of enlargement in NATO’s history. In 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia were admitted.

In the near future, Bush hopes for more southern European countries will join NATO, in particularly Macedonia. Currently, Macedonia has been not extended membership due to not meeting the criteria in the Membership Action Plan because of their difficulty in political reforms. In order for NATO to reconsider membership, Macedonia must settle their dispute with neighboring country, Greece. However, NATO is still determine to strategically help Macedonia to seek NATO membership.