Country Joins NATO Partnership Plan

The former Yugoslav republic of Croatia, just emerging from nine years under the ironfisted rule of the late President Franjo Tudjman, joined a NATO program in a step toward bringing the country into the European mainstream. Foreign ministers meeting in Florence, Italy, watched as Croatia signed on to NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. The program was created in 1994 to establish cooperation with neutral and former East Bloc countries, who see the program as an entry point to eventual membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The West welcomed the victory of Croatian reformist forces in January’s parliamentary elections, which were held three weeks after Tudjman’s death.