AFP - Montenegro's Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic said Friday he was optimistic that his country would clear the first hurdle in its bid to join NATO by the end of the year.

Djukanovic was speaking after talks with the alliance's secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

"I think my optimism is not unrealistic," Djukanovic told journalists, adding that Montenegro should be admitted to NATO's preliminary Membership Action Plan by the end of December.

The government said Rasmussen had vowed the alliance would stick to its "open door" policy for new candidates, after he met with Montenegro's Foreign Minister Milan Rocen and and Defence Minister Boro Vucinic on Thursday.

He "in particularly very much appreciates" Montenegro's decision to send 31 soldiers to Afghanistan, the government's statement added.

Rasmussen later visited Bosnia, another Balkans country hoping to join NATO.

"My vision is that all the Western Balkans countries should become NATO and EU members," he was quoted as saying by the SRNA news agency after the meeting in Sarajevo.

NATO foreign ministers are set to meet in Brussels next week to decide whether to provide Montenegro and Bosnia with a membership action plan, the forerunner to joining the 28-nation North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Rasmussen warned on Wednesday that both countries face an uphill battle for acceptance, saying it was not certain that the time was right.

"We appreciate the progress achieved in both countries, but there is still work to be done, less in Montenegro, much more in Bosnia," he said in an Internet video.

The prospect of membership of NATO and the European Union has been a powerful force for reform in the volatile Balkans, where conflict raged for much of the 1990s.

To join NATO, aspirants must complete political, democratic and military reforms, as well as have good relations with their neighbours. Their citizens must also be in favour of their candidacies.

Their membership must be endorsed unanimously.