Posted on 07/28/2006 10:48:20 AM PDT by Doctor13
PRISTINA, Serbia-Western powers and United Nations should allow Kosovo to create an army as part of resolving the final status of the disputed province, a think tank said in a report Friday.
The International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, said that the final status determination should outline the steps that will be taken to develop a small Kosovo defense force, which would be limited in its size and capabilities.
The international community "must avoid creating a weak state," the ICG warned.
It proposed that the force should be made up of up to 3,000 personnel and have no tanks, heavy artillery, ground to ground missiles or attack aircraft until Kosovo and Serbia have joined NATO's partnership programs.
Kosovo, formally a province of Serbia, has been under U.N. rule for over seven years, following a NATO air war which halted Serb forces' crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians.
U.N.-brokered talks are underway between ethnic Albanians, who demand independence and Serbian leaders which insist that the province remain within Serbia's borders.
Some form of independence is the most likely outcome for the province of 2 million.
Since coming under U.N. rule in mid-1999, authorities in Kosovo have built a new police force of some 7,000 officers. The province also has a 3,000-strong Kosovo Protection Corps, or KPC, a civil emergency organization, mainly consisting former ethnic Albanian rebels which fought Serb forces during the 1998-1999 war.
The report urged NATO's 17,000-strong peacekeeping force in charge of the overall security of the province, to maintain its presence by providing mainly external protection until relations between Kosovo and Serbia are normalized.
The group said that the army, developed under strict NATO oversight, should be built in part by sucking in members of the civilian corps, but also bring the Serb minority on board. It said that such force should be oriented toward international missions, such as peacekeeping.
Our widdle biddy chilwen are in harms way in that quagmire called Kosovo. We should immediately redeploy them to Okinawa.
What a great idea.
(/sarcasm)
THINK!!!!!!!
Dumb Tank had one of the most idiot ideas in the world, Yeah: legally create, then arm and ISLAMIC army..the World doesn't have enough of those already (sarcasm)!
Most think tanks have a great deal in common with septic tanks. Both stink, are full of offal, give off noxious fumes and need cleaning out about every once in a while.
Should note that there is a place to comment re this on the thinktank's website here: http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=4290&l=1
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