NATO has approved the stationing of additional forces in Kosovo, the military alliance announced on Friday, after the worst violence in years occurred in northern Kosovo. A battle between police and armed Serbs hiding in a monastery turned a quiet village in northern Kosovo into a war zone earlier this week.
NATO said in a statement it had “authorized additional forces to resolve the current situation” but did not immediately say how many or from which countries. A later statement from the British Ministry of Defense said it had given the alliance command of a battalion of troops.
Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a guerrilla insurgency and a NATO intervention in 1999, accuses Serbia of arming and supporting Serb fighters. Serbia, which has not recognized the independence of its former province, accuses Kosovo of fueling violence by mistreating Serb residents. Serbia and the main Serbian political group in Kosovo declared public mourning for the Serbs killed in the battle.
The British Ministry of Defense said it had transferred command of the 1st Battalion of the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment a reserve force of the NATO Kosovo Force (KFOR) to NATO so that it could provide support if necessary. He said the battalion recently arrived in the region for a longplanned exercise.
SOURCE: Portal