01 April 2009
Albania and Croatia Join NATO
Accession papers accepted at State Department April 1
Washington — Albania and Croatia are the newest members of NATO.
In a joint ceremony at the State Department April 1, representatives from Albania and Croatia deposited instruments of accession to the North Atlantic Treaty, becoming the 27th and 28th members of the alliance.
The United States is the depository government for the mutual defense pact, which will celebrate its 60th anniversary April 4 during the 2009 NATO Summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany.
In a written statement, a State Department spokesman hailed the accession: “We welcome the completion of the accession process prior to NATO’s 60th Anniversary Summit on April 3 and 4, where Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha and Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader will take their seats for the first time representing their countries as members of the Alliance.”
Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg accepted Albania’s and Croatia’s instruments of accession in the department’s ornate Treaty Room. At the moment Steinberg received the accession instruments, Albania and Croatia became NATO allies.
Albanian Ambassador Aleksander Sallabanda and Croatian Ambassador Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic represented their countries at the event.
NATO, originally just 12 members, has seen its mission change from one that focused primarily on security to an alliance that advances democratic and economic change not just in the region but more broadly. NATO’s first expansion included the accessions of Greece and Turkey in 1951 and Germany in 1954.
In 1981, Spain became a member, followed by the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland in 1997, and Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia in 2003.
The announcement of Albanian and Croatian membership came on the same day that President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev pledged to move forward on nuclear disarmament and to advance cooperation on a broad range of other foreign policy and cultural issues. Russia has expressed increasing concern about the growing membership of NATO.
Obama expressed confidence in disarmament talks. “I think people on both sides of the Atlantic understand that as much as the constant cloud, the threat of nuclear warfare has receded since the Cold War, that the presence of these deadly weapons, their proliferation, the possibility of them finding their way into the hands of terrorists, continues to be the gravest threat to humanity,” he said at a press briefing April 1 in London. “What better project to start off than seeing if we can make progress on that front? I think we can.”
