PODGORICA (AFP) – Montenegro’s Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said yesterday he was optimistic that Podgorica would make progress toward NATO membership before the end of the year.

Djukanovic was speaking after talks with the alliance’s secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who also met Thursday with Montenegro’s foreign and defense ministers.

“I think my optimism is not unrealistic,” Djukanovic told journalists, adding that the country should be admitted to NATO’s preliminary Membership Action Plan (MAP) by the end of next month.

The government late on Thursday quoted Rasmussen as saying the alliance would stick to its “open door” policy for new candidates, after he met Foreign Minister Milan Rocen and and Defense Minister Boro Vucinic respectively.

He “in particularly very much appreciates” Montenegro’s decision to send 31 soldiers to Afghanistan, the statement added.

Later yesterday, Rasmussen headed to Bosnia, another Balkan country hoping to join NATO.

NATO foreign ministers are set to meet in Brussels next week to decide whether to provide Montenegro and Bosnia with a MAP plan, the forerunner to joining the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

However, Rasmussen warned on Wednesday that both countries face an uphill battle for acceptance, saying it was not certain that the time was right.

“We appreciate the progress achieved in both countries, but there is still work to be done, less in Montenegro, much more in Bosnia,” he said in an Internet video.

The prospect of membership of NATO and the European Union has been a powerful force for reform in the volatile Balkans, where conflict raged for much of the 1990s.