FOREIGN MINISTERS OF NATO CANDIDATE COUNTRIES MEET IN ESTONIA

Foreign ministers of ten countries that aspire to NATO membership -- Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia -- adopted a joint statement in Tallinn on 2 July which urged the alliance to extend invitations at the Prague summit in 2002 to all prepared candidates regardless of geography and history. The ministers praised the speech by U.S. President George W. Bush on European security in Warsaw last month and the positive impact of pro-enlargement statements by many European leaders. The participants agreed on the need for closer cooperation between the candidate countries in the run-up to the Prague summit. To that end, they will hold a summit conference in Sofia on 5 October, a prime minister meeting in Bucharest in the spring of 2002, and a high-level meeting in Riga in the summer of that year.