WASHINGTON (AP) — 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.

President Bush was to meet Friday with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and then sign so-called accession protocols paving the way for the two former communist nations’ final membership in the military alliance.

The White House invited to the signing ceremony about 160 lawmakers, members of the diplomatic corps, the U.S. ambassadors to Albania and Croatia, and members of Albanian-American and Croatian-American groups.

NATO leaders agreed at a summit earlier this year in Romania to invite Albania and Croatia into the alliance. However, the alliance rebuffed U.S. attempts to begin the process of inviting Ukraine and Georgia, both former Soviet republics, to join. Despite strong U.S. backing to bring them in, Germany, France and some other alliance members opposed the move, fearing it would provoke Russia.

The idea of NATO enlargement on its doorstep has irked the Russians.