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NATO has announced plans to reduce the number of troops stationed in Kosovo over the next year due to the “improved security situation”.
Around 4,600 NATO soldiers currently make up the alliance’s peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, which began in June 1999 following NATO air strikes against Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević’s regime, ending the Kosovo war.
Known as the Kosovo Force (KFOR), its initial objectives were to prevent conflict from resuming and to maintain public safety and order while demilitarising the Kosovo Liberation Army.
“The current conditions provide an opportunity to optimise KFOR’s size and posture further,” US Air Force General Alexus G. Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said in a press release on Friday.
He added that NATO and KFOR were “fully committed to safety and security in Kosovo” and that their commitment had “led to increased stability” as local security organisations had become more capable.
“Calibrated reductions” to troop numbers are now expected over the year, with NATO saying they would be carried out “gradually and in line with conditions on the ground”.
A change in the security situation could see the cuts reversed, the alliance said.
NATO deployed up to 1,000 additional troops to Kosovo after tensions mounted in the region in 2023 – the largest reinforcement of its peacekeeping mission in 10 years. It came after Serb gunmen and local police clashed in northern Kosovo.
Following the Kosovo war, NATO peacekeepers’ tasks have included assisting displaced persons and refugees, de-mining, border security, and weapons destruction. They also helped establish the Kosovo Security Force.