BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO ministers pledged on Friday to keep their peace force in Kosovo at current strength as it heads towards independence and to make more troops available as necessary to deal with any violence.
By Mark John and Sue Pleming
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO ministers pledged on Friday to keep their peace force in Kosovo at current strength as it heads towards independence and to make more troops available as necessary to deal with any violence.
Ethnic Albanian leaders of the breakaway Serbian province are expected to declare independence in the next couple of months after the failure of international mediation, potentially sparking new unrest in the Balkans.
"We will act resolutely against anyone who seeks to resort to violence," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told foreign ministers of the 26-nation Western military organization as they began talks in Brussels.
!ADVERTISEMENT!A senior U.S. official said ministers would announce that NATO's 16,000-strong KFOR peace force would remain at current levels "with full flexibility for the commanders."
Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht said after a dinner of NATO and EU foreign ministers late on Thursday that all agreed that KFOR strength should be maintained.
He said de Hoop Scheffer had confirmed at the dinner that additional troops would be made available if needed, a reference to up to four reserve battalions on stand-by.
"Everybody agreed to that and nobody was putting into question their contribution to KFOR," he told a news briefing.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told reporters it was crucial that European nations, whose internal divisions failed to stop the outbreak of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, showed unity in the months ahead.
"This is in Europe's backyard and European nations need to show real leadership ... We know from the mid-1990s the cost of Europe wringing its hands and failing to provide leadership."
PRE-EMPTIVE APPEAL
NATO foreign ministers will be asked to confirm they will not lay down limits on how the KFOR can deal with violence as they did when riots in 2004 caught NATO off-guard.
"It will be a pre-emptive appeal to ensure that commanders have maximum flexibility," said one NATO source, adding that a statement after the meeting should reflect that commitment.
Diplomats believe an explicit pledge by alliance nations that they will keep KFOR at full strength and not impose caveats -- such as banning their troops from riot control -- will be a crucial deterrent in the tense weeks ahead.
International mediators will report to the United Nations on Monday that efforts to reach a compromise between Pristina and Belgrade failed. Russia wants further mediation, but the West says the time to settle Kosovo's status has come.
Washington and the vast majority of European Union states are likely to recognize a declaration of independence by Kosovo, expected around late January, and a senior NATO envoy said no KFOR country had indicated a wish to pull troops out.
"We want to say to the Kosovars that a unilateral declaration of independence will make things difficult, if not impossible," said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn.
He added that many European capitals wanted them to wait until after Serb presidential elections expected from mid-January before making an declaration.
NATO commanders are confident KFOR is well resourced to deal with trouble and diplomats play down the prospects of violence.
But the West has been irked by aggressive rhetoric from Belgrade, and on Thursday the EU's mediator on Kosovo demanded that Serbia disown a comment made by an adviser to Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica that "war is a legal tool."
Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign to halt ethnic cleansing by Serb forces of the 90 percent ethnic Albanian province, which Belgrade insists must remain under its sovereignty.
(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Diana Abdallah)
