Being braced for new security challenges and opened towards new partners and new areas of cooperation, reaffirming at the same time its commitment to its fundamental principles and values, NATO will be in the coming years equally important as it has been for six decades, Croatian President Ivo Josipovic said in his speech before heads of state or governments of the Alliance's 28 members in Lisbon on Friday evening.

Josipovic said that Croatia, which was participating in NATO's summit meeting for the first time as a full member after it joined the alliance in April 2009, had, together with other member-states, actively contributed to a broad debate on the new Strategic Concept and expressed satisfaction with the fact that Croatia's major political and security positions were incorporated in the text of this new document.

Josipovic praised the Strategic Concept, which NATO's 28 members approved at the Lisbon summit, for its balance in the most important areas

When Croatia joined the Alliance, NATO was 60 years old. This was a long period, but one thing has not changed: our mutual commitment to the joint security, guaranteed by a firm and permanent trans-Atlantic connection and allied solidarity, the Croatian president said.

"In our constantly changing world, NATO is and must remain in the future a permanent source of stability," he said.

Croatia fully supports the principle of co-operative security, as defined in the Charter of the United Nations

Jospovic called on NATO to keep open its door to all European countries that would like and are able to join the alliance.

It is clear that first of all, I refer to southeastern European countries. The Croatian government and I personally are doing our best to strengthen cooperation with our neighbours and in the entire region, he said.

The fresh example of those efforts is the recent visit of Serbian President Boris Tadic to the Croatian town of Vukovar, where on behalf of Serbia Tadic offered apologies for grave crimes committed there, Josipovic said adding that he and Tadic together paid tribute to the dead and to those who went missing in the war.

Croatia is committed to working on the stabilisation of the southeast of Europe and firmly believes that the region's path towards Euro-Atlantic institutions is the best solution for the region, he said.