Bosnian Serbs hail NATO's handover of Bosnia mission to EU

BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-Hercegovina (AFP) Jun 28, 2004
Bosnian Serb President Dragan Cavic hailed as historic Monday the decision of NATO leaders to wind up its peacekeeping mission in Bosnia at the end of the year and welcomed the EU's offer to take it over.

NATO's decision to hand over its SFOR peacekeeping mission in Bosnia to the European Union was historic because it was the first time that the EU was sending its soldiers on such a mission, he said.

The NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force was deployed in Bosnia in December 1995 after a US-brokered peace deal ended the former Yugoslav republic's three-and-a-half-year war which claimed some 200,000 lives.

"The decision to end NATO's nine-year mission in Bosnia marks its success in ending the war and keeping the peace in that country," NATO leaders said in a statement issued after the first session of a two-day Alliance summit in Istanbul.

"We welcome the decision of the European Union to mount a new operation in Bosnia, and look forward to continued cooperation," they added.

At the beginning of its mission SFOR numbered some 60,000 soldiers, but its number steadily declined in recent years and now SFOR counts only some 7,000 troops.

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