BRATISLAVA (Reuters) - The United States does not intend to isolate Slovakia, despite political problems which have excluded it from the first round of NATO expansion, Washington's ambassador said in a newspaper interview. "So far, we have not shut any doors. We have just said that the politics and the laws adopted in Bratislava excluded this country from the first group of the NATO membership candidates," Ambassador Ralph Johnson said in Tuesday's Pravda. "The same politics and legislature are evidently endangering the opportunities of Slovakia to join the European Union," he said. Johnson said some U.S. aid programmes for Slovakia would continue despite its failure to be invited to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). He said the value of U.S. military assistance and cooperation with Slovakia had risen to $13 million from $1 million in 1994. "However the enlargement of NATO turns out, we expect that this important aspect of the relations between the U.S. and Slovakia will gain strength," he added. Johnson said parliament's recent decision to ignore the ruling of the Constitutional Court to reinstate František Gaulieder, a politician who was stripped of his mandate, was one factor reducing Slovakia's chances of integration with western structures. "Our fears that Slovakia missed its chance to move toward democracy and integration with western structures, still remain," Johnson said.

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