CAMP BONDSTEEL, Kosovo (Reuters) – NATO has brought some reserve troops of its peacekeeping mission (KFOR) for training to Kosovo, one of the mission commanders said on Wednesday, amid unrest among Kosovo Serbs ahead of a deadline for state-issued vehicle number plates.
Earlier attempts to introduce Kosovo licence plates in heavily Serb dominated northern Kosovo had led to clashes between police and local Serbs, who erected roadblocks in summer.
The barricades were only dismantled when the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) peacekeepers stepped in to oversee the process and Kosovo agreed to postpone the licensing rule deadline to Oct. 31.
The approaching deadline has raised fears of a conflict between Kosovo and Serbia, more than two decades after NATO bombed Serbia to end repression of Kosovo’s Albanian majority.
“As part of normal contingency planning, there are reserves that are rehearsed in terms of their arrival here,” KFOR’s regional commander east, Colonel Christopher Samulski, told reporters at Camp Bondsteel.
Serbia does not recognise Kosovo’s independence, declared in 2008, and Serbs in northern Kosovo consider Belgrade, not Pristina, to be their capital. Around 3,700 NATO peacekeepers are still stationed in the former Serbian province to prevent violence between ethnic Albanians and Serbs.
On Tuesday, KFOR’s deputy commander said NATO could not rule out fresh tensions in the north as the deadline approaches, and that the alliance was ready to ramp up troops in Kosovo should tensions among minority Serbs flare again.
“The First Fuseliers from the UK are here as the strategic reserve, which is a normal rehearsal of their entrance and integration in normal operations”, Samulski said, referring to a British infantry unit.
The U.S. officer did not give any concrete figures on how many reserve troops had arrived in Kosovo but spoke of a “battalion-size” unit. A battalion usually comprises between 500 and 1,000 troops.
Samulski said KFOR could also draw on reserves outside Kosovo.
(Reporting by Sabine Siebold; Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)
