BRUSSELS, Dec. 2 (Xinhua) -- NATO foreign ministers are holding a two-day meeting Tuesday to discuss the way forward for Ukraine and Georgia's accession to NATO.

    The ministers were to review the two countries' requests for Membership Action Plan (MAP), a roadmap for NATO membership. The following is a brief introduction to this program.

    MAP was launched in 1999 to accommodate accession of former Warsaw Pact countries. Under MAP, an aspiring country has to submit annual national programs on its preparations for possible future NATO membership covering political, economic, defense, security and rule of law areas. The national programs set up specific targets in these various fields.

    As a general rule, MAP requires an aspiring country to settle international, ethnic or territorial disputes by peaceful means and to show commitments to the rule of law and human rights. The aspiring country has to establish democratic control of its armed forces and show its capability to contribute to NATO's collective defense and to the alliance's new missions.

    The alliance assesses the progress of an aspiring country and provides advice and assistance through annual meetings of the decision-making North Atlantic Council.

    Although participation in MAP does not guarantee that the aspiring country will ultimately become a member of the alliance, past experience has shown that all MAP participating countries had joined NATO.

    At present, Albania, Croatia and Macedonia are MAP countries. Albania and Croatia have been invited to join NATO while Macedonia has been assured a place in NATO once it has solved the dispute with Greece over its constitutional name.

    So far, MAP has been a mandatory process for aspiring countries to join NATO.