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US Senate will ratify protocol in shortest period possible

United States Capitol in Washington; Photo: WikiCommons / Scrumshus

cdm logoPODGORICA – The Republican Senator and former candidate for the US President Marco Rubio said his support to Montenegro was unquestionable, CdM reports.

In his statement for Dnevne Novine newspaper, he emphasised that he expected the Senate to ratify the Montenegrin NATO accession protocol in the shortest period possible.

He said that in that way, Montenegro, USA’s partner in democracy, would “become closer to the West at a time when Russia was threatening to jeopardise democracy in the Balkans and Europe”.

After Canada ratified the Montenegro-NATO Accession Protocol last week, thus becoming the 25th member state to approve Montenegro to join the alliance, there are only three countries to do the same: Spain, the Netherlands and the United States.

National Coordinator for NATO Dragan Pejanovic is convinced that these three countries will do that before the summit which will be held in Brussels on 25 May.

“Everything is running as planned. The ratification process in the three remaining member states is running according to their national procedures, which cannot be influenced. I believe that the protocol ratification will end soon and that Montenegro will participate at the forthcoming NATO summit in late May in Brussels as a full NATO member state,” Pejanovic told DN.

Recently, foreign minister Srdjan Darmanovic said he was confident that the US would ratify the protocol by May. As he said, he got guarantees from the Senate for that.

“Montenegro has received assurances the U.S. Senate will ratify its accession to NATO and expects to become a full member of the alliance at a summit in late May”, Darmanovic said in an interview with Reuters.

“It’s going to happen, 100 percent,” said Darmanovic, Montenegro’s Washington ambassador from 2010 to 2016.

Darmanovic countered speculation that U.S. ratification of Montenegro’s NATO accession may fall victim to a desire by the new administration of President Donald Trump to improve relations with Russia.

Before Canada, the protocol has been ratified by the Czech Republic, Croatia, Lithuania, the UK, Iceland, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Albania, Poland, Turkey, Romania, Latvia, Estonia, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Portugal, Germany , Greece, France, Italy and Norway.

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