Kosovo Pristina Airport 26 June 2003

Speech by NATO Secretary General, Lord Robertson at the arrival of the North Atlantic Council in Kosovo LORD ROBERTSON (NATO Secretary General): ...all of the NATO Council coming to Kosovo today with the new seven countries who will join the Alliance next year were here to underline NATO's commitment to Kosovo and our determination to finish the job here and to provide security and safety for the people of Kosovo. We're here to commend General Mini and the soldiers of KFOR, many of thousands of whom have come through here since 1999. We have very strong messages that the job that needs finishing is a multi-ethnic, democratic, unified Kosovo, that the democratic institutions in place must be seen to work for all of the people of Kosovo and there must be no tolerance of extreme language or organized crime and criminality. So we're here today to give a strong message of continuing support, but only for a tolerant, multi-ethnic Kosovo and the whole NATO Council will be strongly delivering that message today. Q: (inaudible)... ROBERTSON: We will only reduce the forces if we can do so and still maintain a robust military presence here, backing up UNMIK and the job that it is doing. We constantly look at the NATO combat forces in the light of the trained Kosovo Police Service and what they can do and should do inside Kosovo. It may be that there will be reductions in forces, but we will not reduce the standards of robust help that we give at the present moment. Many thousands of young people have served here in uniform and out of uniform as part of KFOR. We are very proud of them. We've come here to be a tribute to them and this place would not be a free country, many people would not be alive was it not for these Kosovo forces to have come through here since 1999. The situation is improving, but we're still not happy. The situation is much better than it was, but more needs to be done and a multi-ethnic, a genuinely multi-ethnic democratic Kosovo is our objective, nothing less. Thank you very much.