NATO Secretary-General George Robertson has reportedly recommended NATO member states to suspend the ratification of Slovakia's accession to the Alliance, acording to the British journal Jane's Intelligence Digest.

Citing sources from NATO headquarters the artcile says the move was prompted by the current controversy surrounding Premier Mikulas Dzurinda's efforts to dismiss the head of the National Security Office (NBU) Jan Mojzis.

Slovakia is one of seven former Eastern-bloc countries due to join NATO in 2004. Ratification has so far been approved by the United States, Canada, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Denmark, Luxembourg, Italy, and Norway, and it is still to be completed by Great Britain, Turkey, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Greece, France, Belgium, and Iceland.

The move can reflect on Slovakia's relations with the European Union, which it hopes to enter in May 2004 due to EU agreement to comply with NATO decisions on the state of the new member states.

TASR-SLOVAKIA, the News Agency of the Slovak Republic, said NATO member states are denying Jane's Intelligence Digest report.

French sources confirmed that Paris intends to ratify the entry of all seven countries - Slovakia, Slovenia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Romania, TASR-SLOVAKIA said.

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