Gives

Published by The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2005

NATO Gives Serbian Pres Its Commitment To Kosovo Security

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

BELGRADE (AP)--NATO's commander for southeastern Europe assured Belgrade officials Monday that the alliance remains committed to bringing security and stability to the troubled Kosovo province.

Adm. Michael G. Mullen, in charge of NATO's Joint Force Command based in Naples, Italy, spoke after top-level talks here on security issues and defense reforms in Serbia-Montenegro.

"You know my responsibilities for security in the region, the Balkans in particular," Mullen told Serbian President Boris Tadic. "You have my commitment to continue...to work very hard for a safe and secure environment for the people in Kosovo."

Belgrade has demanded NATO step up efforts to ensure security for Kosovo's minority Serbs, who were targeted in ethnic attacks in March.

Although officially part of Serbia-Montenegro, Yugoslavia's successor state, the southern, ethnic Albanian-majority province has been run by NATO-led peacekeepers and a U.N. mission.

Mullen said the peacekeepers were "now in very good shape" to prevent violence such as last year's rampage by ethnic Albanian mobs that left 19 people dead and more than 900 injured. Some 4,000 people - mostly Serbs - fled to safety, while at least 600 Serb homes and Christian Orthodox churches were torched.

Mullen and his hosts also discussed Serbia-Montenegro's aspiration to join NATO, the Balkan country's former foe. Five years ago the alliance bombed Yugoslavia to halt Serbia's crackdown on Kosovo's ethnic Albanians.

Now, Belgrade is trying to make defense reforms and Mullen encouraged those efforts, saying the reforms were "critical to the future of Serbia-Montenegro."

However, the main obstacle to closer ties with NATO has been Serbia's failure to extradite several war crimes suspects wanted by the U.N. court in the Hague, Netherlands, on charges related to ex-President Slobodan Milosevic's war campaigns during the 1990s.

Mullen stopped short of urging speedy arrests of war crimes suspects, but said demands on cooperation with the Hague tribunal were "well understood" by Belgrade.



Volume 7 Number 5 - Tuesday, February 1st, 2005	A Publication of the ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN LAITY