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Croatia has accomplished one of the two strategic foreign policy goals with its entry to NATO, Croatia's President Stjepan Mesic said on Wednesday on the occasion of the Balkan country's admission to the alliance.
"NATO is not only a military alliance but also an alliance which protects democratic values, and our entry into that alliance confirms that Croatia has embraced and defends high democratic standards," Mesic said in a statement.
"With its entry into NATO, Croatia is entering a circle of developed economies with which it can develop economic relations more intensively than before to the benefit of our economy," Mesic said.
The other strategic foreign policy goal that Croatia has set is its admission to the European Union. Croatia wants to join the EU in 2011 after concluding membership talks by the end of this year.
Mesic also congratulated Albania which together with Croatia became a NATO member at a ceremony in Washington earlier on Wednesday.
"The efforts our two countries made in the past years to achieve their strategic political goals have made us ready and worthy partners to NATO member countries. I am proud of that and immensely happy that Albania, too, has achieved its goal. This is a step into a safer future," Mesic said in a letter of congratulation to his Albanian counterpart Bamir Topi.
By depositing the ratification documents on their NATO admission in the U.S. State Department, Croatia and Albania became full members of the alliance.
The ratification documents on the two countries' NATO accession were submitted by Croatia's Ambassador Kolinda Grabar Kitarovic and Albania's Ambassador Alexander Sallabanda.
Croatia's Parliament ratified the document on March 25 and sent it to Washington given that the United States is the depositary of the North Atlantic Treaty.
At the NATO summit in Bucharest in April 2008, Croatia and Albania were invited to join the alliance.
Croatia became the second former Yugoslav republic to join NATO after Slovenia, which joined the alliance in 2004.
The flags of the two new NATO members will be hoisted in front of the NATO headquarters in Brussels at a ceremony to be held on April 7. Croatia will raise NATO's flag in front of the main offices of its Defense Ministry on the same day.
Croatia's delegation at the ceremony in Brussels will be headed by Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.
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