"We hope to get an invitation (at NATO's summit) in 2008. ... We have a lot of hopes that it will come," Fatmir Mediu said after meeting with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's supreme commander in Europe, US General James L. Jones.

"We have a clear platform on planned reforms which will enable the Albanian army to join NATO," Mediu said, adding that his country had already implemented many NATO standards.

But Jones, who was on a two-day visit to Albania, declined to "talk about dates" and insisted that NATO integration would depend on the performance of the candidate country.

"The alliance will do everything possible to assist candidate countries to realise its standards," the US general said.

In May 2003, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia signed the Adriatic Charter with the United States aimed at helping the three Balkan countries to join

Jones also told Albania that NATO was ready to confront any possible violence in the neighbouring Serbian province of Kosovo, but noted that "no particular problems" have arisen there.

Kosovo has been run by a mission since June 1999 when NATO air strikes drove out Serbian forces in response to their crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanian rebels.

Some 17,000 NATO-led peacekeeping forces in Kosovo (KFOR) have been deployed throughout the disputed province, whose Albanian majority want to break away from Serbia, which Belgrade firmly opposes.

KFOR was severely criticised after it failed to halt a three-day outbreak of anti-Serb rioting in March 2004 that left 19 dead and caused thousands to flee the province.

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