57 years ago today, September 12, 1968 (July 20, 1968, lunar calendar), Albania announced its formal withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact Organization (abbreviated as the Warsaw Pact or Warsaw Pact) is a political and military alliance established to confront the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). After the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) joined NATO in 1955, European socialist camp countries (including the German Democratic Republic, East Germany) signed the Warsaw Pact. The treaty was drafted by former Soviet leader Khrushchev and signed in Warsaw, the capital of Poland, on May 14, 1955. All Eastern European socialist countries except Yugoslavia joined the Warsaw Pact. It played an important role in safeguarding the self-security of socialism, preventing imperialist aggression, safeguarding world peace, and promoting national liberation movements. The member states of the organization include Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Democratic Germany (officially withdrawing from the Warsaw Pact on September 24, 1990), Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Albania (announced their withdrawal from the Warsaw Pact on September 12, 1968). At the special meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the Warsaw Pact held in Budapest on February 25, 1991, the foreign ministers and defense ministers of the six member states of the Warsaw Pact (Bulgaria, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Romania, Hungary, and the Soviet Union) signed a protocol on behalf of their own countries, declaring that all military institutions of the Warsaw Pact Organization would be disbanded from April 1, 1991, and that all military operations would be stopped at the same time. On July 1, 1991, at the meeting of the Political Consultative Committee of the Contracting Parties to the Warsaw Treaty held in Prague, leaders of the participating countries signed a protocol and a communiqué on the suspension of the entry into force of the Warsaw Treaty, and the Warsaw Treaty was officially disintegrated.