Kosovo NATO force reduces presence at Serb sites

NATO's peacekeeping mission in Kosovo said Monday it was reducing its presence at two key security sites, Visoki Decani Monastery and a Mitrovica bridge, for the first time since the 1990s war.

The NATO-led KFOR mission said it had begun integrating Kosovo Police personnel into its security arrangements at Visoki Decani Monastery, while adding that KFOR remained the first responder for the monastery's security.

KFOR also said it was starting a gradual transition of its permanent presence at a bridge between Mitrovica's Albanian and Serb areas. The mission said the drawdown would be gradual and based on conditions on the ground, without giving further details.

KFOR said the move at the 14th-century monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site sacred to Kosovo's Serb minority, was in line with an improved security situation. The site remains under 24-hour guard by NATO-led peacekeepers, as Serb heritage sites have been targeted by extremists in the past.

The Mitrovica bridge has seen frequent clashes since the 1998-1999 war and had been controlled by KFOR for the past 27 years. The bridge became a symbol of the city's ethnic divide and a dispute that EU-mediated talks have sought to resolve for more than a decade.

Local media quoted witnesses as saying a tent and permanent post staffed for years by Italian carabinieri on the Serb-majority northern side were gone on Monday. The same sources said carabinieri were still deployed on the Albanian-majority southern side of the bridge.

The main Kosovo Serb political party criticised KFOR's drawdown on the bridge and called for talks with mission officials, urging them to keep troops in the area.

The 1998-1999 war pitted independence-seeking ethnic Albanian guerrillas against Serbian forces. More than 13,000 people were killed, and the war ended after a US-led NATO bombing campaign. International peacekeepers deployed after Serbian troops withdrew in June 1999. Kosovo declared independence in 2008, which Belgrade has never recognised.