NATO agrees to train Kosovo security forces

Appathurai said the training is expected to start soon, and diplomats added that the aim was to have an initial force of 1,200 ready by year's end. Diplomats said the 600 or so Spanish troops serving in Kosovo would not take part in the training.

Although Appathurai stressed the planned multiethnic nature of the force, it was uncertain whether members of Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority would participate.

Meanwhile, Russia signaled its continued annoyance over Kosovo by calling for the dismissal of the top U.N. official in the new nation over plans for the European Union to replace the current U.N. police mission.

Russia contends the EU mission is illegal because it has not been approved by the U.N. Security Council. The U.N. has overseen Kosovo's administration since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted Serbia's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Russia, an ally of Serbia, opposes a plan by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to hand over to the EU more authority over Kosovo's police, courts and other official duties. In a report Thursday, Ban said he wants to let local authorities run the disputed territory with help from the EU.

In his report, Ban said he intended to "reconfigure the international civil presence" in Kosovo "in keeping with the European Union's expressed willingness to play an enhanced operational role in Kosovo in the area of the rule of law."

Council members were still studying Ban's plan, said U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, this month's council president.

NATO also has a problem with the EU's planned 2,200 police and justice law-and-order mission because Turkey objects to increased security cooperation between NATO and the European Union, which includes its rival, Cyprus.

Alliance officials are hoping a solution can be found that will allow NATO troops and the proposed EU police mission to work together.

The U.N. has overseen Kosovo's administration since a 1999 NATO bombing campaign halted Serbia's crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Actually NATO defied and ignored the UN when it bombed Serbia. They left that little bit out and made it sound like the UN approved of the bombing. It did not.

What did Vladimir Putin say about the UN?

"The United Nations is the only universal international organisation," he said. "It is the key element of the whole system of international relations." - Vladimir Putin

Russia is just getting exactly what it demanded. It wanted UN rules and so it got UN rules.

From your link: "All sorts of attempts to resolve issues in violation of U.N. resolutions, as happened in Kosovo and some other issues, are counterproductive and cannot help achieve peace and stability," Medvedev said at the start of the talks with Ban Ki-moon."

The Russsian protest is with EULEX: "This rule of law mission is projected as a continuation of the international civil presence in Kosovo envisaged by the United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, although Russia and Serbia consider the mission illegal."

On April 14, 2008, Vladimir Chizhov, the Permanent Representative of Russia to the EU, outlined the Russian position on the Kosovo.“The EU has decided to dispatch a civilian - police mission, EULEX, to Kosovo. It’s a classical case of the road to (hell) paved with good intentions. We would not mind the EU taking its share of responsibility for what is happening in and around Kosovo. We would not mind the EU organising a mission. But on one necessary condition: that this mission be mandated by the UNSC. Otherwise it lacks legitimacy.” “It’s not without reason that the UN Secretariat has been rejecting any approaches from EU for handover from UNMIK to EULEX.” *

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