Three Balkan nations expected to join NATO outreach program Dec. 14

Three Balkan nations expected to join NATO outreach program Dec. 14
The Associated Press
Published: December 6, 2006

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia are expected to formally join NATO's "partnership for peace" outreach program on Dec. 14, NATO officials said Wednesday.
The program of political and military cooperation is seen as a step toward eventual NATO membership.
Allied leaders meeting last week in Latvia agreed to invite the three countries to join the program despite continued concern that war crimes suspects remain at large in Bosnia and Serbia.
NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is expected to hand the formal invitation to representatives of the three Balkan nations on Thursday. They will then send senior officials to alliance headquarters in Brussels on Dec. 14 to sign the agreement.

The decision to reach out to Serbia comes seven years after NATO warplanes bombed the Balkan nation during the Kosovo war.
Diplomats say the alliance wanted to boost pro-Western Serb politicians locked in a tight race with nationalists ahead of next month's parliamentary elections.
The elections come just days before the U.N. is due to deliver a recommendation on whether Kosovo should remain a self-governing part of Serbia or gain full independence, as demanded by the provinces' ethnic Albanian majority.