Nato leaders agreed today to invite Croatia and Albania to join the alliance but postponed an invitation to Macedonia at Greek insistence, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said.
"For the moment, Greece is not in a position to agree to the entry of Macedonia and it will be Croatia and Albania first," Mr Moratinos told Spanish reporters after the leaders discussed Nato enlargement at a summit dinner in Bucharest.
Greece had said it would veto the former Yugoslav republic's entry until a dispute over the use of the name Macedonia, shared with the most northerly Greek province, is resolved.
Nato allies also agreed that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually be put on a path to joining the allliance. Briefing reporters, spokesman James Appathurai said: "The general sense was that MAP is a matter not of whether but of when."