Serbia complains to UN, NATO over Kosovo Security Force

Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremić said that the formation of the Kosovo Security Forces was completely unacceptable for Serbia, and that it represented a flagrant violation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.

"Serbia will take all diplomatic efforts to change that decision, starting with the letters that the President has sent to the UN and NATO secretary generals, setting forth Serbia's protest," Jeremić said.

"We see the Kosovo Security Forces as an illegal, para-military formation, which the Serbian defense and security systems see as a direct threat to our national security, and peace and stability in the whole western Balkan region," he stressed.

Jeremić said that Serbia would continue to cooperate with KFOR and the international community in Kosovo, and that it would do everything in its power to preserve peace and stability in South-East Europe and Kosovo.

Serbian Foreign Minister Jeremić added that he would be discussing the matter not only in the UN Security Council, but within all international regional security organizations.

"Unfortunately... our level of relations with NATO is not the same as it was before," he said.

NATO, meanwhile, claims that the KSF are not an army, but a lightly armed formation that will be used in crisis situations and for mine clearance.

A NATO official in Brussels told Serbian news agency Beta that the Alliance could not agree with Belgrade's view that the KSF was an "illegal paramilitary formation", and that this was why Belgrade would send a protest to the UN.

The source in NATO said that the new security forces in Kosovo had still to undergo training, that their recruitment had only just begun, and that they would be under the full civil, democratic control of the parliament in Priština and a separate ministry.

The same source added that KFOR would be training KSF members in line with NATO standards and would assist in forming the related ministry.

The forces, which will be multi-ethnic, will number 2,500 members and 800 reservists, and will use two official languages: Albanian and Serbian.

An official in EU High Representative Javier Solana's cabinet told Beta that the creation of the BSK was not an EU matter, but that of the UN and NATO.

The official added that it needed to be borne in mind that five EU member states do not recognize Kosovo.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said that he could "understand that there is dissatisfaction in Belgrade" over the fact that KFOR had been assigned to train the KSF.

Scheffer said that it was "far better for professional forces under democratic control to be responsible for the security issue," than for it to be entrusted to a group like the Kosovo Protection Corps.

The NATO secretary general said that it would be "very good if the KSF were a truly multi-ethnic formation" and were represented by a certain number of Kosovo Serbs.

Both Belgrade and Kosovo Serbs have announced a total boycott of KSF. An editor of a government-sponsored magazine was even sacked after publishing an open-call for recruits advertised by KFOR.