MOSCOW. April 18 (Interfax-AVN) - The May 13 session of the Russia-NATO Council at the level of Armed Forces chiefs-of-staff will focus on European security issues, including the situation in the Balkans.
"Chief-of-Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Anatoly Kvashnin is planning to fly to Brussels for the session of the Russia-NATO council," a source at the Russian Defense Ministry told Interfax on Friday.
"The prospects of peacekeeping operations in Bosnia and Kosovo after Russia's decision to withdraw its peacekeepers from the Balkans will be one of the central subjects of the meeting," the source said.
"The NATO leadership has been notified about Moscow's decision and the relevant document will be officially circulated in the next few days," he said.
"Several technical questions will have to be settled in Brussels related to the transfer of Russian sectors to international forces," he went on to say.
Kvashnin told a Moscow briefing that Russian "blue helmets" will be pulled out from the Balkans during the next two months. "There are no more military tasks in the region and they are not expected to appear in the near future. An international police force is present there in which Russia and other nations are participating," he said.
Kvashnin said that Russia has been spending over USD26m annually on its 970 peacekeepers in the Balkans (650 in Kosovo and 320 in Bosnia and Herzegovina).
The source said that in Brussels Kvashnin will also hold a number of bilateral meetings with his NATO counterparts. "The council session will be chaired by the chairman of the NATO military committee Harald Kujat because NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson will be in Moscow at that time," he said.
On May 13 Moscow will be hosting a session of the Russia- NATO Council at the level of ambassadors.