Slovenia Satisfied with NATO's Assessment of Its Progress

Brussels, 5 April - Reassuring NATO officials that Slovenia will intensively continue its preparations for NATO membership, the Slovene Foreign and Defence Ministers, Dimitrij Rupel and Anton Grizold, expressed a desire that the country would be invited to join the Alliance next year at the Prague NATO summit when membership applications are to be reexamined. "The missing part lost in the first round of enlargement would in this manner be included in the jigsaw puzzle between Italy and Hungary," Rupel said after attending a session of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) in Brussels on Thursday. The two ministers were acquainted at the session with the NATO's assessment of Slovenia's progress in its fulfilment of NATO standards, and were pleased with it.