NATO: Not yet time to cut down Kosovo forces

May 6, 2010, 16:43 GMT

Brussels - Kosovo is not yet safe enough for NATO to be able to reduce its forces in the country, the head of the alliance's military committee said Thursday.

NATO currently has some 10,000 troops in Kosovo, far below the peak of 50,000 that were deployed after NATO bombers halted the ethnic conflict there in 1999.

The alliance is committed to reducing that number, but only when its top general, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR), judges that it would be safe to do so.

'At this stage, it didn't feel that the conditions were there for SACEUR to make a recommendation to move forward (on the reduction),' Admiral Giampaolo Di Paola told journalists at NATO's Brussels headquarters. 'This time will come in the not very distant future.'

Di Paola heads the permanent committee of military representatives from each NATO state at the alliance's headquarters. He was speaking after talks with those nations' chiefs of staff, SACEUR and the head of the Kosovo force, German Lieutenant General Markus Bentler.

He said that any decision to reduce the Kosovo force would be 'condition-driven,' rather than based on a preset timetable.

But he stressed that all 32 nations that contribute to the force had agreed to wait for SACEUR's decision before pulling out their troops.

'There will be no unilateral move, everything will be done in coordination,' he said.