NATO
New membership in the alliance has been largely from Central and Eastern Europe, including former members of the Warsaw Pact. Accession to the alliance is governed with individual Membership Action Plans, and requires approval by each current member. NATO currently has two candidate countries that are in the process of joining the alliance: Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Republic of Macedonia.
In NATO official statements, the Republic of Macedonia is always referred to as the "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", with a footnote stating that "Turkey recognizes the Republic of Macedonia under its constitutional name". Though Macedonia completed its requirements for membership at the same time as Croatia and Albania, who joined NATO in 2009, its accession was blocked by Greece pending a resolution of the Macedonia naming dispute. In order to support each other in the process, new and potential members in the region formed the Adriatic Charter in 2003. Georgia was also named as an aspiring member, and was promised "future membership" during the 2008 summit in Bucharest, though in 2014, US President Barack Obama said the country was not "currently on a path" to membership.
Zoran Dragišić
In 2007, Dragišić said that Serbia would be ready to join NATO within three years. By 2009, however, he indicated that NATO's decision to accept Albania as a member introduced the prospect of Serbia's bid for membership being vetoed. In his view, this changed situation was detrimental to Serbia's territorial integrity; he remarked that if Serbia had joined the Partnership for Peace program earlier and become a NATO member prior to Albania, then Kosovo "would be part of Serbia and [its] independence would not be an issue." By 2016, he accepted that NATO membership was no longer a realistic option, saying, "Serbia [has] clearly stated that it will not join NATO. And nobody has asked us to do it so far. In my opinion, we missed our chance in 2009, when Croatia and Albania joined the alliance."