Nato urged Montenegro on Thursday to put into practice the reforms it adopted hoping to join the Western military alliance, with a decision due in December on whether to take in the tiny Adriatic republic over the objections of Russia. Sixteen years after Nato bombed targets in Montenegro during the Kosovo war, ambassadors of the North Atlantic Council held a two-day meeting in the ex-Yugoslav republic, the latest signal of the alliance's resolve to expand further in the Balkans.
Membership for the mountainous country of 650,000 people would mark the first expansion of Nato ranks in ex-Communist eastern Europe since Montenegro's neighbours Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, and the first since Russia-Western tensions flared over Ukraine. Nato Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg commended Montenegro for modernising its armed forces, improving its intelligence services, bolstering the rule of law and stepping up a fight against corruption.