KFOR to reduce troops to 10,000

NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Admiral James Stavridis was in Priština on Wednesday.

He told reporters that the number of the NATO-led KFOR troops in Kosovo would be reduced from the present 15,000 to 10,000 by the end of January 2010.

Stavridis remarked that the situation in Kosovo was monitored very carefully, and that the plan to reduce the number of troops to 10,000 was made based on Kosovo’s observed progress.

He stated that NATO would continue cooperating closely with all of its partners, especially the authorities in Kosovo, the Kosovo police, KPS, and the territory’s security forces in order to ensure a safe future for it.

This has been Stavridis’s second visit to Kosovo since he became NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, and it included a visit to the KFOR headquarters in Priština, where he met with KFOR Commander Gen. Markus Bentler.