Cheney backs greater Croatia role

Dick Cheney met Mr Sanader at a seaside restaurant in Dubrovnik

US Vice President Dick Cheney has pledged strong support for Croatia's bid to join Nato and the EU.

His comments came during a meeting with Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in the picturesque city of Dubrovnik.

Mr Cheney flew in for talks on Sunday with the heads of Croatia, Albania and Macedonia on Nato membership.

It is his last stop on a tour that also took in Lithuania and Kazakhstan. In a speech in Vilnius, he accused Russia of backsliding on democracy.

Mr Cheney met Mr Sanader after holding talks with Croatian President Stipe Mesic and touring some of the sights of the Adriatic Sea city with his wife Lynne.

"We are strongly supportive of Croatia becoming a full member of the trans-Atlantic community in terms of working with Nato and the EU," Mr Cheney told his host, as they stood on the terrace of a seaside restaurant.

Sharp rebuke

Croatia began accession talks with the EU in October and hopes to join by 2009.

It also signed an agreement - along with Albania and Macedonia - with the US in May 2003 called the Atlantic Charter, which is designed to facilitate their integration into the organisation.

Mr Cheney flew on to the Balkans after an overnight visit to Kazakhstan, where he met President Nursultan Nazarbayev and a small group of opposition leaders.

On the first leg of his trip, Mr Cheney delivered one of the sharpest US rebukes to Russia in years during a speech at an eastern European regional summit in the Lithuanian capital.

He accused Russia of using its vast energy resources to blackmail its neighbours, and said Moscow had a choice to make between pursuing democratic reforms and reversing the gains of the past decade.

Russia rejected Mr Cheney's remarks as "completely incomprehensible".