US vice president Dick Cheney yesterday pledged strong US support for Croatia's bid to join Nato and the European Union.
Mr Cheney made the promise to reformist Prime Minister Ivo Sanader on the eve of a meeting in Dubrovnik with leaders of Croatia, Macedonia and Albania, as he toured former East bloc nations that increasingly have turned west since the Cold War.
He caused diplomatic waves on Thursday with a speech to Baltic and Black Sea heads of state in Vilnius where he accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of backsliding on democracy and using energy reserves to bully Moscow's neighbours.
Standing on a restaurant patio against the backdrop of the Adriatic Sea and a 16th century fortress, Mr Sanader said Croatia was doing its utmost to prepare for entry to Nato and the EU.
"We are strongly supportive of Croatia becoming a full member of the trans-Atlantic community in terms of working with Nato and the EU," Mr Cheney told his host.
Croatia opened EU accession talks in October, hoping to join around 2009. It is also further along than its Adriatic Charter partners, Macedonia and Albania, in aspirations to Nato. All three missed Nato's eastward expansion in 2004.
A key obstacle for Croatia's membership was removed in December with the arrest in Spain of ex-general Ante Gotovina, who had eluded a U.N. war crimes indictment since 2001.
The US vice president flew to the Balkans on Saturday after a closed-door meeting in oil-rich Kazakhstan with opponents of the country's autocratic president, Nursultan Nazarbayev