NATO cuts Kfor to 10,000 troops, aims cuts to 2,000

NATO armies, stretched by conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and with the global economic crisis hitting military budgets, have been looking to wind down their presence in Kosovo.

"The principle has been agreed," NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told a news briefing of an agreement by NATO defense ministers in Brussels to cut the force to 10,000.

The alliance had yet to fix a firm date for this cut, he said, but added: "That date might well be January 1 (2010)."

"Instability and violence is steadily being replaced with security and growing prosperity," he said. "I'm not saying we're there yet, because we're not yet there. More has to be done. But I think we are on the right track."

NATO officials said the longer-term aim was to reduce the force, which currently has a strength of 13,800, to around 2,200 over two years, provided security allowed.

De Hoop Scheffer said that KFOR would remain as long as required. "NATO's commitment to maintain a safe and secure environment remains firm," he said.

Earlier, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said any reduction in the NATO presence from predominantly ethnic Albanian Kosovo should not leave existing troops exposed.

"My concern is that we do this in an organized and coherent fashion as an alliance, and not countries leaving unilaterally," he told reporters on board a plane from the Dutch city of Maastricht to the NATO meeting.

Asked whether any troop withdrawals in Kosovo would free up troops for the alliance's battle against Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan, Gates said: "I would certainly hope so."

But he added: "I'm not going to bet the ranch on it."

A U.S. official said NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe General John Craddock had put forward a plan that envisaged reducing the KFOR force from 10,000 to 6,500 and then to 2,500 if security conditions allowed, but said there was no timeline.

"We want to do it in a way that is stabilizing ... this is a conditions-based approach," he said, requesting anonymity.

KFOR has been in Kosovo since 1999 under a United Nations mandate after a NATO bombing campaign to drive out Serb forces. It once had a strength of 55,000.

"All steps after that will have to be evaluated at a political level," German Defense Minister Franz Josef Jung, whose country has some 2,200 troops in the NATO force, told reporters as he arrived for the meeting.

However, the global economic and financial crisis has forced governments to run higher public deficits and sharpened the appetite for spending cuts. The relative calm in Kosovo has made peacekeeping there a prime target for such cuts.

"It is just prudent good management, and I think it's very sensible at a time of economic difficulty," said a NATO diplomat. "You do not need all the troops currently with KFOR to do the job they need to do now."