NATO's open door pledge

SINTRA, Portugal - NATO, seeking to avoid new divisions in Europe, pledged yesterday to keep the alliance's doors open after …

SINTRA, Portugal - NATO, seeking to avoid new divisions in Europe, pledged yesterday to keep the alliance's doors open after it admits new members from the former communist eastern bloc at a summit in Madrid next month.

The ministers, who gathered in the Portuguese town of Sintra to debate the most radical change in European security since the second World War, said they would ask their leaders to make clear enlargement was a continuing process.