NATO announces partial withdrawal from Kosovo
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Berlin, Jun 11, IRNA -- NATO defense ministers gave green light on Thursday for a partial pull-out part of its 14,000-strong military force in Kosovo, according to German media reports.
"Ministers have decided that the political and military conditions are right for a move towards a gradual adjustment of KFOR's force posture," outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said in Brussels.
According to diplomats, the overall number of NATO troops in Kosovo could be lowered to around 10,000 by the end of the year.
Kosovo came under international supervision after NATO intervened in 1999 by sending some 50,000 soldiers to protect ethnic Albanians, who are Muslims, from ethnic cleansing being carried out by ethnic Serbs, who are Christians.
Kosovo is also the sixth state carved from the Serb-dominated federation since 1991, after Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
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