V-10 Representatives met in Washington

 

Washington, DC, March 16, 2002 – Representatives of the members of the Vilnius group met on the initiative of the Slovak Ambassador to the U.S. Martin Butora on Saturday March 16. The Vilnius group, or V-10, consists of ten countries comprising Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania, Slovenia and Slovakia whose utmost common goal is NATO membership. At the Saturday meetings V-10 countries were represented by their ambassadors to the U.S. as well as by respected members of their ethnic communities. The Croatian Ambassador, Dr. Ivan Grdesic attended the meeting accompanied by the representatives of Association of Alumni and Friends of the Croatian Universities (AMAC), Croatian-American Association (CAA) and the National Federation of Croatian Americans.

The meeting was also attended by Senator George Voinovich (R-OH), a long time supporter of NATO enlargement, who claims that the V-10 membership in the Alliance is of utmost importance for the national security of the US and EU as well as for the expansion of democracy in the world. "We hope to remove all the obstacles by November, so that as many countries as possible can be invited to join the Alliance and that the Senate can confirm the President’s request to expand NATO by next year", said Senator Voinovich.

Croatian Ambassador, Grdesic highlighted the importance of the collective approach to NATO, but added that the individual approach is equally important. “We believe that Croatia is ready for NATO. We already held talks about how the reward for Croatia’s successes can be accelerated, especially on the military level,” said Ambassador Grdesic.

He also said that Croatia does not expect to join NATO during the Prague summit, but would like to keep the door open.

Croatian-American organizations will have a chance to lobby for the Croatian membership in NATO during the traditional manifestation titled Days on the Hill that will be held in mid-April. President of the  CAA, Frank Brozovich said that they would set forth all the strategic reasons for Croatian membership in the Alliance on that occasion.