U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has urged Albania to step up its program of economic and political reforms to meet the criteria for NATO membership. Secretary Rice told Albania's new Foreign Minister Lulzim Basha at a meeting Tuesday, in Washington that Tirana should take every possible step to meet the requirements of the NATO action plan.

NATO's secretary-general says there are no plans for NATO troops to pull out of Afghanistan. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer is discussing regional security with leaders of Pakistan, which says it has increased troops along its border to help curb terrorist activity in neighboring Afghanistan.

A dispute about the relocation of the Soviet War monument led to angriness of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov who said Monday that the U.N. and NATO were conniving at disrespect the memory of Soviet soldiers and seeking to rewrite history.

U.S. State Department officials say they believe obstacles to an international agreement on Kosovo's future can be overcome despite vocal Russian opposition to a United Nations mediator's plan. U.S. and other senior diplomats of the six-nation Contact Group on Kosovo met Thursday in London. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

The U.S. plan to base defensive missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend Europe against potential future threats from Iran was the subject of a congressional hearing Thursday. VOA's Dan Robinson reports, Bush administration officials urged Congress to reverse a cut to funding for the program made by a congressional committee, while opponents raised numerous questions about the plan.

Russia's first deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, has said that Russia will no longer inform Western partners of possible troop movements across its territory. Ivanov was quoted by the Interfax news agency as saying that Russia would retain its moratorium on the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe until all NATO countries ratified a revised version of the pact.

NATO tried to urge Russia on Thursday to prevent threats against Estonian embassy in Moscow and to resolve disputes over removal of the Soviet War Memorial from Tallinn's downtown.

At one level, President Vladimir Putin's announcement in his annual address to the nation on April 26 that Russia may suspend its compliance with the amended 1999 Treaty on Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) is nothing new, given that for the past two years, senior Russian diplomats have repeatedly threatened to withdraw from that treaty completely.

NATO foreign ministers today held talks for a second day in Oslo on a series of issues amid heightened tensions between the alliance and Russia. NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the ministers voiced support for a UN proposal offering Kosovo supervised independence and warned against delaying a decision on the issue.

After the hot talks between Russia and NATO on the missile defenses, NATO foreign ministers had a new discussion. The issues was Moscow-Kosovo, the development of relationship with Ukraine and further expansion of the Western alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on April 26 announced the possibility that he would freeze his country's commitments under a key treaty limiting military buildup in Europe. In between words of praise for Russia's economic and political achievements, Putin used his annual state-of-the-nation address to level an unambiguous warning to the West.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer today confirmed Russia is suspending participation in a key arms-control treaty. Earlier in the day, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia would freeze its compliance with the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE) because NATO members have not ratified the pact and are not abiding by its provisions.