NATO reduces security presence at key Kosovo Serb sites

NATO's peacekeeping mission in Kosovo said Monday that it was reducing its presence at key security sites -- a Serbian Orthodox monastery and a Mitrovica bridge -- for the first time since the 1990s war. 

"The NATO-led KFOR mission has begun the integration of Kosovo Police personnel into KFOR's security architecture at the Visoki Decani Monastery," the mission said. "KFOR remains the first responder for the security of Visoki Decani," the statement added.

KFOR also confirmed it was beginning a "gradual transition of its permanent presence" at a bridge between Mitrovica's Albanian and Serb areas.

The 1998-1999 war pitted independence-seeking ethnic Albanian guerrillas against Serbian forces. More than 13,000 people were killed, with the war ending only after a US-led NATO bombing campaign.

After Serbian troops withdrew in June 1999, international peacekeepers deployed to Kosovo, which declared independence in 2008 -- a move Belgrade has never recognised.

The move at the famed 14th-century monastery -- a UNESCO World Heritage site that is sacred to Kosovo's Serb minority -- was "in line with the improved security situation", KFOR added.

But the religious site remains under 24-hour guard by NATO-led peacekeepers, as Serb heritage sites have been targeted by extremists in the past.

The bridge has seen frequent clashes since the war. It had been controlled by KFOR for the past 27 years, becoming a symbol of the city's ethnic divide and a dispute that EU-mediated talks have sought to resolve for more than a decade.

The drawdown "will be gradual, based on conditions on the ground", KFOR said, without giving further details.

Local media quoted witnesses as saying a tent and permanent post manned for years by Italian carabinieri on the Serb-majority northern side were gone on Monday.

The carabinieri are still deployed on the Albanian-majority southern side of the bridge, the same sources said.

The main Kosovo Serb political party criticised KFOR's drawdown on the bridge and called for talks with mission officials, urging them to maintain troops in the area.