Out of a war zone and into Nato for two Balkan states

ALBANIA and Croatia became Nato's newest members yesterday, as the Atlantic alliance expanded into the volatile western Balkans region, where it fought its first war a decade ago.

The two nations will be ceremonially inducted into Nato during a summit in Strasbourg, France, and Kehl, Germany, on Friday and Saturday to mark its 60th anniversary. It will take the total number of member states to 28.

"This is very welcome news," James Appathurai, a Nato spokesman, said. "Albania and Croatia have worked very hard to meet alliance standards with regard to democracy, and the reform of their militaries."

Nato forces have operated in the Balkans since the mid-1990s, when thousands of troops were deployed to Bosnia to act as peacekeepers in the aftermath of a four-year civil war between ethnic Serbs, Muslims and Croats, in which nearly 100,000 people perished.

In 1999, the alliance mounted its first combat operation, when its air forces pounded Serbia for more than two months. That operation was designed to end the crackdown by the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic on ethnic Albanian separatists in the southern province of Kosovo, which sparked the flight of hundreds of thousands of its two million people.

Mr Appathurai said Albania and Croatia had "overcome a difficult period in their history to become contributors to regional stability and international security".

He went on: "They will now benefit from collective security the alliance offers, but they will also bear the responsibility that collective security requires."

The two new members have already deployed troops to the Nato-led force in Afghanistan, where Croatia has 530 soldiers and Albania 140.

Albania, in particular, is delighted to be joining the alliance, with many of its people seeing such recognition as another step towards membership of the European Union. For nearly 50 years, the country was ruled by xenophobic Communists, headed by the dictator Enver Hoxha, who banned contact with the outside world and pockmarked the countryside with more than 700,000 bunkers, defending against an invasion that never came. The regime was toppled by a student-led revolt in 1990.

In contrast to the alliance's previous eastward expansion that infuriated Russia, Moscow has not objected to the inclusion of Albania and Croatia in Nato.

This is partly because neither were members of the old Communist bloc. The former six-member Yugoslav federation broke free of the Soviet Union in 1948, while Albania followed suit in the early 1960s.

The latter has been strongly publicising its attempt to join the alliance. Every evening in the capital, Tirana, a projector outside the office of the prime minister, Sali Berisha, has been flashing Nato symbols across the main street, on to what once was Hoxha's office.

Analysts say Mr Berisha's ruling Democrats have been trumpeting Nato to promote their party before the country's 28 June general election.

Observers say Albania has never run a truly free and fair election, and such elections are important for progress towards the EU.

Two accession waves have extended Nato's reach across the old Iron Curtain, with the 1999 entry of Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland, followed in 2004 by Slovakia, the three Baltic states, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria.

Albania and Croatia are likely to be the last new members of the alliance for some time, as diplomats have signalled a weariness with expansion.

While a summit last year promised Ukraine and Georgia that they would become Nato members some day, the two former Soviet states failed to win their bid to secure fast-track membership plans, after opposition from Germany and other European allies. And if anything, their membership hopes have dwindled since.