AFP, BUCHAREST - European leaders kept Georgia and Ukraine waiting at NATO's doorstep Thursday in a major setback for US President George W. Bush at his last summit of the transatlantic alliance.

Inching deeper into what, during the Cold War, had been enemy territory, NATO extended formal invitations to once-communist Albania and Croatia to start negotiations to become the 27th and 28th members of the bloc.

If all goes well, those two Balkan states could be full-fledged members when NATO -- the world's most powerful military bloc -- celebrates its 60th anniversary next year.

But despite 11th-hour American arm-twisting, European leaders -- wary of upsetting an increasingly assertive Russia -- denied coveted pre-membership status to Georgia and Ukraine, at least for this year. Both former Soviet republics want in to the so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, which grooms erstwhile communist states in eastern European for NATO accession, as a counterfoil to Russian influence.

Both former Soviet republics want in to the so-called Membership Action Plan, or MAP, which grooms erstwhile communist states in eastern European for NATO accession, as a counterfoil to Russian influence By way of consolation, NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said NATO would offer Georgia and Ukraine "intensive engagement", along with a vague promise of membership sometime down the line.

"We agree today that these countries will become members of NATO," he told reporters as the heads of state and government broke for lunch. "That is quite something." "The decision has been made to accept us moving toward NATO," Giorgi Baramidze, Georgia's minister for Euro-Atlantic integration, told AFP.

"We think this is a historic achievement for Georgia." The other hefty item on the Bucharest summit agenda -- getting more European NATO members to send more troops and material to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan -- was being tackled later Thursday.

France has pledged to send a battalion, comprising fewer than 1,000 men, to be deployed in eastern Afghanistan -- freeing up US troops to reinforce hard-pressed Canadians in the south.