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NATO to cut Kosovo troop numbers to 5,000

30 October 2010 03:50 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. NATO will reduce its troop numbers in Kosovo to 5,000 in the new few months due to improved security, the alliance head said on Friday, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced in September last year that the alliance would cut its Kosovo Security Force, or KFOR, from 15,000 troops to 10,000 troops at the beginning of this year.
"Over the next few months, KFOR will progressively reduce its presence to around 5,000 troops in total," Rasmussen said in a statement.
"Security conditions in Kosovo continue to improve, which is a positive sign not only for Kosovo, but for the whole region."
Rasmussen said it was a further step toward shifting KFOR’s role to that of a deterrent presence.
"Local institutions are increasingly capable of assuming responsibility for security tasks," he said, adding that KFOR would remain able to deploy forces quickly and effectively whenever necessary.
International peacekeepers arrived in Kosovo in 1999, following a 78-day NATO bombing campaign to drive out Serbian forces from the overwhelmingly ethnic Albanian province and end killings of Albanian civilians in a two-year war.
Kosovo declared independence in February 2008 but ethnic strife, particularly in its Serb-dominated north, has persisted. Three international peacekeepers and six locals were wounded when ethnic Serbs and Albanians clashed in Kosovo’s divided town of Mitrovica in September.
At present the country of 2 million people has an acting president, a government with only 12 out of 18 ministers, no police chief and no central banker, after his arrest in a corruption case.