pro-Western government

American Vice President Mike Pence praised Montenegro's NATO membership as a "historical achievement" during a meeting with Montenegrin Prime Minister Dusko Markovic in Podgorica on Wednesday.

"NATO is made up of big and small states, but the US does not have small allies," Pence said, adding that his visit illustrates the US' support for the Western Balkans.

US Vice President Mike Pence is to visit Podgorica and meet Balkan leaders on Tuesday and Wednesday and is expected to reaffirm Washington's support for the region after accusing Russia of seeking to "redraw international borders" and "undermine democracies".

What has been widely called the "trial of the century" in Montenegro, over last year's allege coup plot, was postponed on Wednesday after defence lawyers filed a motion to replace Special Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic and other prosecutors in the case.

Moscow on Sunday took the unsual step of expelling a Montenegrin MP, Miodrag Vukovic, from the ruling Democratic Party of Socialists, after he was reportedly declared "persona non grata".

Montenegrin Justice Minister Zoran Pazin said on Friday that Montenegro had asked Moscow to allow its the special prosecutor to examine two Russian nationals suspected of having played a leading role in last October's alleged coup.

The "Russian state" orchestrated an attempted coup on October 16 in Montenegro in a bid to stop the Balkan country from joining NATO, Montenegrin Prosecutor Milivoje Katnic said on Sunday.

A leading conservative newspaper in Britain on Sunday said it had obtained exclusive information from the top levels of the UK government that Russian intelligence was behind a plot to kill the then Montenegrin Prime Minister on election day and derail the country's accession to NATO as its 29th member.

Representatives of the large Serbian community in Montenegro will meet Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Monday in Belgrade to seek his support about what they call their "intolerable situation" in Montenegro.

Days before the fifth vote in the UN Security Council for the post of Secretary General on September 26, Serbia's candidate, Vuk Jeremic, is winning support from important Western media outlets as the best candidate.

Despite the praise, a foreign policy expert for the Serbian newspaper Politika, Bosko Jaksic, told BIRN that Jeremic would probably not be elected.

Opposition groups are planning an anti-NATO rally on Saturday, demanding a referendum on Montenegro's upcoming membership of the Western alliance.

On December 2, Montenegro received a long-awaited invitation to become the 29th member of NATO. The government called it a "historic moment".