AFP - NATO defence ministers endorsed Thursday a plan for thousands of peacekeepers to leave Kosovo if security conditions allow, alliance Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said.
  
The plan, NATO diplomats say, would see the KFOR mission cut to 10,000 troops from nearly 15,000 by January, and fall to some 2,500 personnel over two years if the right political and security conditions are in place.
  
Scheffer said the reduction will happen "in a gradual and phased manner, and each step will be decided by the North Atlantic Council (of NATO nations) based on military advice."
  
As security concerns in Kosovo ease, and pressure mounts on the 28-member alliance to deploy to places like Afghanistan while faced with an economic crisis biting into budgets, nations have called for KFOR to be scaled back.
  
But members remain deeply concerned about a possible rise in tensions in Kosovo, which broke away from Serbia in February last year, and NATO officials say they are not abandoning it.
  
"KFOR will remain in Kosovo, it will remain responsible for a safe and secure environment," Scheffer told reporters after chairing a session of defence ministers.
  
"We will have at all times the manoeuvre forces and reserves at all times when we need them," he said.
  
NATO has been tasked by UN Security Council resolution 1244 to provide security in Kosovo since the transatlantic alliance launched a 78-day air war in 1999 -- a decade ago as of Wednesday -- to stop a Serbian crackdown on separatist ethnic Albanians.
  
Albanian-majoriy Kosovo's independence is recognised by around 60 countries including the United States and 22 of the 27 EU nations. Serbia is backed by its ally Russia in opposition to the move, which they consider a breach of international law.