NATO commander says Kosovo future unknown

WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- NATO's top military commander says the next few months will be telling in Kosovo as elections near and the question of independence is uncertain.

NATO leads a 16,000-member Kosovo Force peacekeeping mission in the breakaway Serbian province. Roughly 1,600 U.S. service members are part of the force. Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, says the Balkan province is one of his top priorities, according to the American Forces Press Service.

Kosovo’s elections are scheduled for Nov. 17, when 120 members of the national assembly will be elected. The Parliament members are the body that will elect a new president and prime minister.

Officials say a vast majority of Kosovars want independence from Serbia, a move the Serbs vigorously oppose.

“I think right now I would tell you that in Kosovo there is uncertainty,” Craddock said, in a statement Thursday. “There's impatience (among the Kosovars), because they want a decision. I think that December will be a telling time, and I think that there is some angst right now in Kosovo, and impatience and uncertainty.”

Craddock says NATO will be watching the election process closely to ensure security.