NATO prepared to deal with possible civil disturbances in Kosovo

BRUSSELS, Belgium: NATO troops based in Kosovo will react robustly to any civil disturbances or provocations in Serbia's breakaway province while the U.N. Security Council considers its final status, the alliance said Friday.
"Let nobody who might be thinking of resorting to violence during this very sensitive period have the illusion that this would not be met with a very stiff response," NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said. "It is essential that everybody in Kosovo stays calm."
Ethnic Albanian politicians have warned that putting off a U.N. plan that would grant independence to the province could result in violent protests.
Kosovo, a province of 2 million people of whom 90 percent are ethnic Albanians, has been run by the U.N. since mid-1999 when a NATO air war halted a crackdown by Serb forces on Albanian secessionist rebels.
In February, U.N. police killed two rioters when they confronted thousands of ethnic Albanians who had broken through a security cordon and tried to march toward a government building in Pristina, the provincial capital. And 19 people died in a series of anti-Serb riots in March 2004 riots that displaced thousands and damaged hundreds of Serb homes and medieval churches and monasteries.

NATO has about 17,000 troops in Kosovo.
"NATO defense ministers again reconfirmed that they are really determined that KFOR will do what is necessary to keep the peace and stability," de Hoop Scheffer said. "We are satisfied that we have what we need to do the job."
The Security Council has not set a date to vote on a resolution to endorse the recommendation of U.N. special envoy Martti Ahtisaari for independence for Kosovo under international supervision.

In Pristina, the U.S. envoy to Kosovo also appealed for calm.
"It is very important to maintain the calm and discipline that have defined Kosovo and its leaders over the past months," Frank Wisner said. "We look to them to maintain their unity ... as Kosovo moves toward independence."
In Belgrade, Serbia's President Boris Tadic urged NATO protection for non-Serbs in Kosovo at a meeting with Adm. Harry Ulrich, commander of NATO's Joint Force Command based in Naples, Italy.

The United States and European Union back Kosovo's bid for independence.
But this it vehemently opposed by Serbia which is backed by Russia. Moscow contends independence would set a dangerous precedent for the world's other breakaway regions.
The issue has become one of the main irritants in relations between Moscow and Washington. It also has caused differences within the EU and NATO, because some European nations with secessionist movements of their own are worried that Kosovo's independence could encourage separatist demands.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the alliance backed Ahtisaari's proposal — known as Plan A — and warned that a delay could exacerbate divisions within its 26 member states.
"Nobody wants a situation in which there would be no Security Council resolution, because this would risk differences in views ... within Europe and potentially within NATO," he told journalists.

"That is why everybody wants Plan A," Appathurai said. "We need a political road that will ... ensure the unity of the European Union and NATO on this issue."