Hosting NATO’s top brass, Montenegro said on Wednesday it was optimistic of being invited to join the Western military alliance in December, over the objections of Russia.

Ambassadors of NATO’s North Atlantic Council were meeting in Podgorica on Wednesday and Thursday in the latest signal of the alliance’s resolve to usher Montenegro into its ranks.

Bringing in the tiny Adriatic republic of 650,000 people would mark the first expansion of NATO ranks in ex-Communist eastern Europe since Montenegro’s neighbors Albania and Croatia joined in 2009, and the first since Russia-Western tensions flared over Ukraine’s 2014 revolution and the war that ensued.

“I am certain the conditions are there for the alliance member states in December to take the decision to invite Montenegro to join,” Montenegrin Foreign Minister Igor Luksic said in a statement to Reuters.

The United States has signaled its support for the accession of the former Yugoslav republic.

Washington’s NATO envoy, Douglas Lute, said on Wednesday there was an “emerging consensus” among NATO’s 28 members though an invitation would depend on Montenegro making further progress on reforms to tackle corruption and improve the rule of law, and ensuring public support in the country, where polls are mixed.

“So if those two conditions are met,” Lute said, “then the U.S. vote in December will be positive.”

Image: Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Prime Minister of Montenegro Milo Djukanovic, June 11, 2015 (photo: NATO)