NATO Rejects Planned Troop Cuts in Kosovo

Insists Security in North Requires Troops to Stay

by Jason Ditz, August 30, 2011

In an interview today with the Associated Press, NATO’s Kosovo Commander Major General Erhard Buehler reported that the hyped plans to dramatically cut the number of troops in Kosovo have been cancelled.

Maj. Gen. Buehler insisted that not only had the plans been cancelled but that he did not believe there would be any other cuts “in the near future,” while insisting that security in the ethnic Serbian north would have to dramatically improve.

The latest tension in Kosovo began last month, when Kosovo central government troops attacked locally operated border posts in the ethnically Serb north, leading NATO to eventually seize all the northern border posts and announce that it intends to keep them.

The Kosovar Serbs had been heavily trading with Serbia, and the Kosovo government wanted all trade halted. The Serbs remain unhappy with the deal, which has NATO troops keeping them from trading with their neighbors.

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