(Recasts after first summit session)
By Ilona Wissenbach and Paul Taylor
BUCHAREST, April 2 (Reuters) - NATO leaders failed to agree
at the start of a summit on Wednesday to put former Soviet
republics Ukraine and Georgia on a path to membership or to
invite Macedonia to join the alliance.
The double setback for U.S. President George W. Bush at his
final NATO summit overshadowed agreement to invite two new
Balkan countries -- Croatia and Albania -- to join the 26-nation
defence alliance and progress on extra troops for Afghanistan.
NATO spokesman James Appathurai hailed a breakthrough on
Afghanistan after French President Nicolas Sarkozy offered up to
1,000 extra troops for the east, enabling the United States to
redeploy forces to the south, scene of the fiercest fighting
with Taliban insurgents.
That in turn enabled Canada to say its parliamentary
conditions had been met to stay on in Afghanistan, where it has
suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Islamist guerrillas.
"There is a clear unity within the alliance that this
mission must succeed, that it will succeed," Appathurai told a
late-night briefing. "All of the allies reiterated this will be
a long term commitment."
However, on enlargement, he acknowledged the lack of
agreement on the main disputes going into the Bucharest summit.
The leaders agreed both Ukraine and Georgia were entitled to
apply to join NATO and that it was "not a matter of whether but
of when", the spokesman said.
But he said he did not expect either to be granted a
Membership Action Plan (MAP), a gateway to eventual accession,
this week.
Germany and France had led opposition to the move, saying
that neither aspirant met NATO's criteria yet, and that the
decision would be an unnecessary provocation to Russian
President-elect Dmitry Medvedev.
"NOT RIPE"
German Chancellor Angela Merkel reaffirmed on arriving in
Bucharest that both countries should have a long-term prospect
of NATO membership, "but there is one difference with the United
States: we believe the time for MAP is not ripe".
At stake was whether NATO pushes its European borders right
up to the frontiers of Russia, with the exception of Belarus, or
leaves a strategic buffer zone as the Kremlin wishes.
Bush had strongly urged sceptical European allies earlier to
reward both countries for their democratic revolutions and not
to allow Moscow a veto over NATO decisions.
"My country's position is clear -- NATO should welcome
Georgia and Ukraine into the Membership Action Plan," he said.
A senior U.S. official said no formal consensus had been
reached at the dinner and decisions would be taken on Thursday.
"The issue of exactly how to proceed on that decision was
not resolved," the official said of Ukraine and Georgia, voicing
hopes that leaders would do a "lot of thinking overnight".
On the other enlargement issue, Spanish Foreign Minister
Miguel Angel Moratinos told reporters: "For the moment, Greece
is not in a position to agree to the entry of Macedonia, and it
will be Croatia and Albania first."
Athens threatened to veto Skopje's entry over an unresolved
dispute about the former Yugoslav republic's name, which is the
same as the most northerly Greek province.
"We have said that no solution means no invitation," Greek
Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni told reporters.
Analysts have said a rebuff for Macedonia could destabilise
the fragile, ethnically divided state with knock-on effects
throughout the region.
Bush sought to soothe Russian anger over what Moscow sees as
NATO's attempt to encroach on its sphere of influence, saying
the Cold War was over and Russia was not the West's enemy.
Looking ahead to a weekend summit with Russian President
Vladimir Putin, Bush said there could be an unprecedented level
of strategic cooperation on missile defence and arms control.
Amid blanket security that shut down much of central
Bucharest, police broke into a factory in Bucharest that has
been rented by a group of anti-NATO protesters and took away 46
suspected activists for identity checks.
(Additional reporting by Susan Cornwell, Matt Spetalnick,
Justyna Pawlak, David Brunnstrom, Sabina Siebold and Randall
Palmer in Bucharest; Writing by Paul Taylor and Mark John;
Editing by Timothy Heritage)
