NIS, Serbia, Sept. 20 (UPI) -- A NATO general said Wednesday his troops in Serbia's predominantly ethnic-Albanian Kosovo province will not tolerate ethnic violence.
Speaking to reporters in the central Serbian town of Nis, Lt. Gen. Roland Kather, the chief of NATO protection troops, said, "Our duty is to ensure security in Kosovo and everybody can rest assured we shall do that in a friendly way, but resolutely," RTS Serbian radio-television reported.
"Whoever thinks there will be no peaceful development of the situation during ongoing talks on solving the Kosovo status, I tell them we shall not tolerate violence from anybody's side," Kather said.
U.N.-mediated talks between Serbian government officials and ethnic-Albanian leaders, under way since February, should decide who will govern Kosovo once U.N. administration and NATO personnel leave.
No breakthrough has been achieved and major Western countries plan to bring the Kosovo talks to an end by next year.
But, the Serbian government in Belgrade, which represents Kosovo's 100,000 Serbs, says the province will never be independent, while leaders of ethnic Albanians, who make up 90 percent of Kosovo's 1.8 million population, insist on independence from Belgrade.
