Bush on brief visit to NATO invitee Croatia
2008-04-04

Category NATO Nations Croatia Serbia Russia Ukraine Romania City Moscow People Vladimir Putin George W. Bush

U.S. President George W. Bush arrived in Croatia on Friday after a NATO summit at which leaders invited the former Yugoslav republic to join the 26-nation western alliance.

Bush was due to hold talks in Zagreb and attend a state dinner. On Saturday he will deliver a speech to the Croatian people in the capital's historic St. Mark's Square.

The 24-hour visit is a brief interlude for Bush between the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, also attended by Russian President Vladimir Putin, and a weekend of talks with Putin at the Russian leader's Black Sea holiday home in Sochi.

NATO leaders and Putin hailed the positive mood at their 90-minute summit, intended to thaw chilly relations, but said they made no breakthroughs in their many disputes.

At his last meeting with NATO before stepping down, Putin again criticized the Western military pact's plans to expand eastwards, after it promised former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia they would one day become members.

"What is positive in today's dialogue is that our concerns about ensuring our own security ... have been heard," Putin told a news conference after meeting Bush and other NATO leaders.

Bush says the anti-missile shield he plans to install in Europe is necessary to protect against missile strikes by what Washington calls rogue states, specifically Iran. Moscow says it believes the shield will be a threat to its national security.

Putin said the missile shield would be discussed in more detail when Bush visited him in Sochi this weekend.

Bush, like Putin, is in the twilight of his presidency.

He is expected to praise Croatia for its democratic reforms since independence in 1991 and urge it to carry on, setting an example to other states in the fragile Balkans region.

The United States recognized the creation of the latest Balkan republic in February, when Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia.

But Serbia bitterly opposes the secession of its treasured southern province and is firmly backed by Putin in its avowed determination to overturn its recognition by the major NATO and European Union allies.

(Writing by Douglas Hamilton; editing by Tim Pearce)