NATO to move across Serbia next year

NATO to move across Serbia next year
Posted on : 2006-12-20 Author : World News Editor News Category : World
BELGRADE, Serbia, Dec. 20 (UPI) NATO's chief in Belgrade said Wednesday the first convoys of NATO troops could begin passing through Serbia by February.
Gen. Yanick Asset, chief of the liaison office that opened Monday in the Serbian Defense Ministry, told Belgrade's B92 radio the first NATO transit could begin in February.
Asset said he will implement a troop transit agreement signed in July 2005, cooperating with Serbian government officials.
The NATO office will cooperate with a Serbian military reform group that was formed in February and deal with activities stemming from Serbia's access to the Partnership for Peace program, signed last week.
Asset said he does not expect any problems or hostile incidents during movement of NATO troops across Serbia, despite the fact that the alliance staged three months of air attacks on Serbia's military targets in 1999 to stop a Serbian security forces campaign against ethnic-Albanians in Kosovo.
U.N. civil administrators and NATO troops have been deployed in the southern province since in a bid to contain ethnic conflicts.
Copyright 2006 by United Press International