New Kosova Report

Troops ready for Kosovo deployment

Monday, 03 March 2008

KFOR

Any emergency deployment of hundreds of UK troops to Kosovo will not affect Britain's ability to conduct operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the House of Commons was told Monday. Britains Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth told MPs there was a "long-standing commitment" to deploy a British Army battalion to Kosovo as a reserve force and this had been planned for by defence chiefs.

Britain had the "ability" to deploy and would send the 600-strong battalion of British soldiers within days, should it be required.

The Minister was speaking amid increasing tensions in the region after Kosovo's declaration of independence last month. This has been recognised by Britain, Germany and the US but opposed by Russia, Serbia and Kosovo Serbs.

Today a Serbian official said Belgrade had taken control of a 30-mile stretch of railway line in northern Kosovo.

Ainsworth told the House of Commons "Our people stand ready and able to undertake the deployment should it be so". He said "There are 18,000 NATO troops in Kosovo. This was a commitment that was long expected and planned for". "Should the deployment be necessary we have the ability and we have done the planning necessary in order to be able to meet our commitments and we will do precisely that". The Minister said there was a debate across NATO over burden sharing. "We have in this country a very real military capability that we have been able to use in the Balkans area very effectively".

In conclusion, Ainsworth said that the reserve capability was shared with Germany and Italy.

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Valbona said:

...
Also there is an urgent need to accelerate the formation of Kosovo Security Force (KSF) i.e to shorten the procedure of transition of KPC from its current mandate into KSF ( from now one year into 3 months transition since the situation is unpredictable and there can be no trust at Serbia army and its paramilitary groups) aiming the use of this KSF 3000 strong military compound for keeping first frontlines border combat if Serbia and Russia would try to assault military Kosovo borders ( also there should be some internal negotiations and deals with ANA comandos aiming to use them too in the first lines of the conflict) thus NATO and KFOR would preserve their serviceman not to be jeopardised if combat of low intensity is in place. NATO and KFOR in this case will just logisticaly back up Kosovo Security Force and be fully engaged only when there is conflict of a large scale.

March 05, 2008
Votes: +0

Valbona said:

	... NATO should consider to make a real contact with ANA (Albanian National Army) for joint actions if Serbia and Russia atack military borderrs of Kosovo. This is very urgent since ANA has shown readiness to help KFOR, UNIMK Police and KPS in preserving Kosovo borders.
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