international effort to assess risks to energy infrastructures and to promote energy infrastructure security." It further states that NATO leaders "direct the Council in Permanent Session to consult on the most immediate risks in the field of energy security, to define those areas where NATO may add value to safeguard the security interests of the Allies and, upon request, assist national and international efforts." Radio Free Europe reports that an unnamed diplomatic source told that several NATO leaders, including Latvian president Vaira Vike-Freiberga, had tried to make arrangements for bilateral talks concerning this topic with Russian president Vladimir Putin during the summit, but Putin instead attended the CIS energy summit in Minsk, Belarus on 28 November 2006. In contrast, The Independent reported that the summit was marred by a diplomat fracas over an invitation to President Vladimir Putin and that he was eventually not invited, and that Putin as a result threatened that he would visit Latvia for the first time since independence during the summit to upstage the summit. It was even proposed that Putin could honour French president Jacques Chirac, who was at the summit and whose 74th birthday coincided with the summit, by visiting Latvia. He later made clear that this would not go ahead. 2008 membership invitations The NATO Heads of State and Government congratulated the efforts of the three Balkan states currently in NATO's Membership Action Plan: Albania, Croatia and Macedonia, and declared that the Alliance intends to extend further invitations to these countries during the 2008 Bucharest Summit, on condition that these countries meet NATO standards. The Alliance also affirmed that NATO remained open to new European members under Article X of the North Atlantic Treaty, but remained largely silent on the prospects of Georgia and Ukraine, two countries that had declared membership as a goal, as the summit limited itself to noting the efforts of both countries to conduct an "intensified dialogue" with NATO. Nevertheless, Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip said after the summit that he had discussed Georgia's membership with US president Bush on 28 November. He further added that in his view Georgia had "very good chances" to join NATO if the planned reforms would continue and that a Membership Action Plan, the next necessary step on Georgia's way towards membership, was only "a small step away". Preceding the summit, it was expected that Ukraine was on a fast track to