NATO to scale down Kosovo presence, US official says

Jun 8, 2009, 15:30 GMT

Brussels - NATO is set to cut by a third its troop presence in Kosovo when defence ministers meet in Brussels on Thursday, a senior United States official said Monday.

'We will shift to the next phase, which is a deterrent presence, from now 15,000 to 10,000, by the end of January 2010,' the official told journalists in Brussels.

This is 'part of NATO's efforts to devolve more competences to local forces,' the official said.

NATO currently has some 15,400 peacekeeping troops stationed in Kosovo, a legacy of a 50,000-strong force (KFOR) sent into Kosovo in the wake of the NATO bombing campaign of 1999 which put a halt to the ethnic bloodshed in the country.

Over the last decade, KFOR has evolved from a purely disarmament role, playing a part in setting up and training the lightly-armed Kosovo Security Force while keeping its peacekeeping function.

But given the relative lack of serious incidents in Kosovo since the Serbian province declared independence in February 2008, NATO members now believe that it is time to scale back their presence.

That follows advice from the alliance's top military commander, whose approval would also be needed for any further force reductions, the US official said.

The move comes after Spain - one of a handful of NATO members which does not recognize Kosovo's independence - in March announced that it intended to pull its 632 soldiers out of KFOR.

That still rankles among NATO allies. The US official said that his country would have preferred a policy of 'in together, out together.'

The expected decision comes as NATO allies are looking to boost their presence in Afghanistan in a bid to stabilize the country.

Thursday's meeting is also set to approve a NATO training mission for the Afghan police and paramilitary forces, amid concerns that a parallel European Union mission is not up to the job, NATO diplomats told the German Press Agency dpa.