NATO
Croatian Television (HTV) Interview with Ambassador Victoria Nuland, U.S. Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Zagreb, Croatia
March 7, 2006
HTV: Madame Ambassador, in two weeks from NATO the Assistant Secretary General and yourself are here in Zagreb. Is this a diplomatic offensive?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: Well Drazen, first let me say that it's great to be here. This is my first trip to Croatia, first trip to Zagreb, and we are enormously impressed with the progress Croatia has made in democratic development and your economic development. As you know the United States very strongly supports your aspirations to join NATO. We have said up in Brussels that the next time we anticipate NATO heads of state and government looking at candidates for enlargement would be in 2008, which puts us about two years out. And it would be normal at this time for us to intensify our work with the aspirant countries. So that's why we're here. We're here to see how you're doing, to talk to you about how you are doing, and to intensify our efforts to work together to help Croatia meet its goal of NATO membership.
HTV: Do you think that Croatian officials want to make a quick progress before the November summit?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: I would say that we had terrific meetings today. We saw the President, we saw the Prime Minister, we saw a broad cross-section of parliamentarians, and we were very impressed on two fronts: first of all, the commitment to Croatia's Euro-Atlantic future, and also the really serious attitude towards the work that needs to be done. You are not in yet. You are not ready yet, there's a lot of work to do. But we felt really strong understanding and commitment to do that work, and to meet the obligations of membership. So I think it was really a good day.
HTV: How do you exactly evaluate Croatia as a partner country?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: As I said we have been very impressed with the increasing strength of your democracy, with the economic progress that you've made. You're working strongly on the difficult issues from your past: refugee returns, crime and corruption, the justice system - those kinds of things. And we wish you continued success on those fronts. As we look at your NATO candidacy, we need to work with you to continue to strengthen your armed forces, to help you to implement this ambitious reform that you have, to have not a big bloated 20th century military, but a lean, mean 21st century military that can join the great democracies of the world in meeting our common challenges, whatever they may be. So we talked about that together. We also talked about the question of whether the Croatian people support a NATO future, because obviously it's important for the government to support it, but it's more important for the people to support it. The Alliance is a big step. So we will not invite a country that doesn't want it. We will only invite a country that has decided as a matter of popular decision, that you want a NATO future.
HTV: Now that General Gotovina is in The Hague, it seems that the American administration is still not satisfied. Why is that? Because of the Iraq action, not sending our troops to Iraq, or maybe not signing the Article 98?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: The Iraq issue is not a factor in the NATO process. We're very pleased to see the courageous decision that you made on General Gotovina. But you know NATO membership involves progress on the full range of democratic, economic and defense issues. So as I said we are pleased with the progress you're making, but there's more work to do. And there's particularly more work to do in increasing the strength of your military, and more work to do in the cosmic question of whether your people want to be part of NATO. Because we're not forcing ourselves on you, you have to want it.
HTV: In the mid and late 90s the previous administration used to say that Croatia is a key player in this region. Does Washington still think so?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: Absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact we recently had your foreign minister and the foreign ministers of Albania and Macedonia to Washington to the State Department to talk both about your NATO membership and the important role that you're playing in the intense work we're doing throughout the Balkans this year to bring stability and peace, and particularly the support that you're providing to the U.N. process to determine Kosovo's final status. And we had good talks today with both the President and the Prime Minister about the role that Croatia is playing in the region politically, economically and increasingly in defense partnership with your neighbors, which is quite a miraculous thing when you think about where you were ten years ago. So we're very pleased.
HTV: When we talk about military actions, does the United States really need such an amount of allies? Because in some ways, some countries send just a few soldiers to that kind of actions.
AMBASSADOR NULAND: You know, alliance is first and foremost about a community of strong democracies who are willing and eager to work together to defend our values - defend them politically, by speaking out for what's right; defend them in common action when necessary. So from our point of view we have allies in NATO like Luxembourg with only a thousand soldiers and Iceland with no soldiers, but they're valuable to us because of their willingness as nations to defend our values together, and to be with us. So countries who are ready to make that commitment to our defense, and who have done all of the hard work to strengthen their democracy and make economic progress and really build a solid foundation, from our point of view NATO has only gotten stronger it has grown.
HTV: Croatian public is always skeptical when it comes to money. Can it be said how much it costs for Croatia to enter NATO and become a full member?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: I can't put a dollar figure on that for you, that will be a Croatian decision how much investment to put into this. It takes, as you know already, a strong investment to build a strong democracy, to build strong institutions. It takes investment to build a modern military, and it's going to take some investment to go out and spread the word about what today's NATO is to the Croatian public. And I want to say a word about that, if I may. You know, this is not the Cold War alliance that stood static waiting for the Soviet Union to come across the Fulda Gap. This is a NATO that is out in the world providing peace and security to the people of Afghanistan, humanitarian aid to the people of Pakistan, and support to the African union in its deployments in Darfur. We are leading courses in training the next generation of Iraqi leaders. And of course we're still deployed here in the Balkans to support peace and stability. So in the words of my old friend and mentor Former Secretary General of NATO George Robertson, "This ain't your daddy's NATO."
HTV: At the end it seems to the Croatian public that Croatian officials, Croatian politicians are always choosing between the European Union and the United States. Will that be an obstacle for the American administration when it comes to decision of NATO enlargement?
AMBASSADOR NULAND: I'm not sure that I understand the question, because the way the United States thinks about this, we need the strongest possible community of transatlantic democracies. So we don't see any contradiction between a strong relationship with us, a strong relationship with NATO, and a strong relationship with the EU. In fact we increasingly believe that all three are necessary for the kind of partnership we need in this world. So we would like to see Croatia be strong in all of those.
HTV: Madame Ambassador, thank you for giving this interview for Croatian Television.
AMBASSADOR NULAND: Thank you very much.