Rutte: The number of KFOR troops in Kosovo will be as it was before 2023

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that it is good news that the Alliance will reduce its presence in Kosovo and that the number of troops will be close to the level seen before 2023.

Rutte emphasized that the situation continues to improve.

"When we look at the security situation in Kosovo, we see that it continued to improve overall last year. That is good news for Kosovo. As a result, NATO stopped deploying reserve forces to Kosovo in January, after two years of continuous rotation," Rutte said ahead of a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Brussels.

He went on to say that NATO is constantly assessing how best to adjust KFOR's presence and that the number of troops will now range between 3,000 and 3,500.

"Looking ahead, we currently see that KFOR has a strength of around 4,700 troops. What we will do is return to the level of presence we had before 2023. Of course, that will depend on the circumstances, and we expect KFOR to have between 3,000 and 3,500 troops. I believe that reflects the improved security situation," Rutte said, reiterating that the KFOR mission will remain focused on its core task.

The United States announced that it plans to adjust its contribution to the KFOR mission as part of a broader review of the Alliance's military presence in the region.

The spokesperson for NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Martin O'Donnell, stated that NATO is not planning to withdraw from Kosovo and that the gradual reduction of KFOR's presence in Kosovo is not a matter of troop numbers, but rather of optimizing the mission and maintaining security in the region.