By Petar Komnenic
PODGORICA: NATO urged Montenegro on Thursday to put into practice the reforms it has adopted to join the Western military alliance, with a decision due in December on whether to take in the tiny Adriatic republic over the objections of Russia.
Sixteen years after NATO bombed targets in Montenegro during the Kosovo war, ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council were holding a two-day meeting in the ex-Yugoslav republic, the latest signal of the alliance's resolve to expand further in the Balkans.
Membership for the mountainous country of 650,000 people would mark the first expansion of NATO ranks in ex-Communist eastern Europe since Montenegro's neighbours Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, and the first since Russia-Western tensions flared over Ukraine.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the visit would give envoys the chance to hear first hand of Montenegro's readiness, or not, to join; opponents of the ruling party, enjoying an unbroken hold on power for more than two decades, say progress on democracy, rule of law and the fight against corruption is on paper only.
The government says it has taken concrete steps to improve the independence of the judiciary, the conduct of elections, freedom of media and made a number of high-profile arrests in a stepped-up anti-corruption campaign. Some rights groups and the political opposition, however, say progress has been piecemeal.
"In the few years since regaining its independence, Montenegro has made great efforts and achieved a great deal," Stoltenberg said in his opening remarks to the Council.
"It is now important for Montenegro to show these systems are performing, delivering the results for which they were created."
Moscow has described NATO's extension in the Balkans, where Russia has historically portrayed itself as a protector of Orthodox Christianity, as a "provocation".
The United States has signalled its support for Montenegro's accession, but diplomats say France is uncertain given the sensitivity of relations with Russia and the fragility of a ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.
Supporters of Montenegro's membership bid say it would send a message to Russia that it cannot halt NATO's expansion, though it is much less contentious step than the alliance's earlier overtures to the likes of former Soviet Georgia, whose own membership ambitions were quashed by a war with Russia in 2008.
Montenegro's breathtaking Adriatic coastline has seen an influx of Russian private money, homebuyers and tourists since the country split from a state union with Serbia in 2006.
But Podgorica's relations with Moscow have long been uneasy given the Montenegrin government's pursuit of closer integration within the West largely since the end in 1995 of the wars over the break-up of old federal Yugoslavia.
Ties deteriorated further when Montenegro joined EU sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and support for pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Stoltenberg noted too the need to work on public support in Montenegro for joining NATO, with opinion polls mixed.
Some in the country, notably ethnic Serbs, oppose joining an alliance that bombed Serbia and Montenegro as the surviving members of a rump Yugoslavia in 1999 to halt the killing and expulsion of ethnic Albanian civilians in Serbia's then Kosovo province.
Reuters
