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Slovenia begins withdrawing military contingent from Kosovo

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Slovenia has begun withdrawing its military contingent from Kosovo, where it has been serving under NATO command as part of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) since February, the STA news agency reported Saturday.
BELGRADE, August 18 (RIA Novosti) - Slovenia has begun withdrawing its military contingent from Kosovo, where it has been serving under NATO command as part of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) since February, the STA news agency reported Saturday.

The pullback, to be completed by September 7, is part of a policy to reduce the country's participation in international peacekeeping efforts from 11% of its armed forces to no more than 5-6%.

Slovenia, which along with Croatia was the first of the former Yugoslav republics to achieve independence in 1991, has a population of 2 million.

Its 600-strong contingent in Kosovo - an Albanian-majority province that has been an international protectorate since the end of a 78-day bombing campaign against the former Yugoslavia that ended a conflict between Serb forces and Muslim Albanian separatists in 1999 - will be replaced by 160 peacekeepers who will serve in the Hungarian contingent.

KFOR currently has 16,000 troops in the province enforcing an uneasy peace between an ethnic Albanian majority and a beleaguered Serb minority. A United Nations plan by special envoy Martti Ahtisaari, which would have recognized Kosovo's immediate independence, was opposed by Russia and Serbia, and subsequently voted down in the UN Security Council in July.

On August 12, envoys from the so-called troika of the EU, U.S. and Russia ended a three-day visit to Belgrade and Pristina, where they met with the Serbian leadership, representatives of Kosovo Albanians and Kosovo Serbs to discuss further developments.

The troika was established July 25 to mediate during new Kosovo talks between Belgrade and Pristina as part of the Contact Group for Kosovo, which also includes France, Italy and Germany.

The EU and the U.S. have backed Kosovo's drive for independence, while Russia, a traditional Serbian ally, has opposed the move, saying it would violate Serbia's territorial integrity and set a dangerous precedent for breakaway republics in general.

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