(WASHINGTON) — The United States is taking another step toward getting Albania and Croatia — both isolated behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War — folded into the NATO alliance.

As a member of the European Union and NATO, Bulgaria supports Albania’s European and Euro-Atlantic prospect, both politically as well as from its experience in integration processes, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said Thursday.

Russia has not got into the difficult situation brought by global financial crisis and may emerge from it a stronger economy, President Dmitry Medvedev said Thursday.