PRISTINA, Nov 9, 2009 (AFP) - The top NATO official in Kosovo said Monday the security situation was "favourable" ahead of the first independently organised elections in the breakaway Serbian province set for November 15.
"We have a very, very favourable security situation here," German General Markus Bentler, commander of the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in Kosovo known as (KFOR), told reporters.
He said the 13,000-strong KFOR had no "indications that the election process will pose a security risk at the polling stations for the voters."
Sunday's elections, in which voters will choose mayors and deputies for 36 town councils, are the first since Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.
Bentler said the polls were "a point of major attention" for NATO and warned that "some risk factors" should be taken into consideration, notably the "still remaining rift between different ethnic groups and tension" in the north of Kosovo, populated mostly by the ethnic Serb minority.
"This is of course a point of major concern," Bentler said, while assuring that KFOR troops would be able to react at very short notice "if need be."
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) was mandated to organise elections in Kosovo after it became a UN protectorate in 1999.
That followed a NATO air war against the then-Yugoslavia that had ended a crackdown by Serbian forces on the independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
More than 60 countries have so far recognised Kosovo as an independent state, including the United States and all but five members of the European Union.
Backed by its traditional ally Russia, Serbia says Kosovo's secession is a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity under international law and still considers the territory as its southern province.
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Received by NewsEdge Insight: 11/09/2009 08:26:36
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