Fears over Bosnia troop cut plan

SARAJEVO, Bosnia -- A United Nations official says a U.S. proposal to cut Bosnia's NATO-led peacekeeping force by a third would harm the Balkan country's peace process.

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested in Brussels on Tuesday that the Stabilization Force (SFOR) -- which has secured peace in Bosnia since its 1992-95 war -- be cut next year by 6,000 soldiers from the current 18,000.

British defence officials said last week NATO would soon move to reduce numbers of the alliance's soldiers in the Balkans, freeing troops for the U.S.-led "war on terror" and also for a new European Union rapid reaction force.

A Bosnian foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that the country was not worried about the proposed cut -- provided it continued to move toward stability.

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But Stefo Lehmann, spokesman for the U.N. police mission in Bosnia, told Reuters that such a move would be premature and that NATO's presence "should not be reduced until the job is done."

"The entire international civilian presence and mission composition in Bosnia is predicated upon SFOR fulfilling the role that it has been set out to do in Dayton," he said.

The U.S.-brokered Dayton treaty ended Europe's worst conflict since World War II by dividing Bosnia into a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb republic.

The Bosnian war claimed some 200,000 lives, and many Bosnian Muslims, Serbs and Croats see NATO troops as a guarantee that the conflict will not erupt again.

The peace force also provides support for international officials trying to foster inter-ethnic cooperation.

"Any change of SFOR's ability to fulfill this role will have serious consequences for the entire international presence in Bosnia and for its efforts to create a stable self-sustaining democracy," Lehmann told Reuters.

"Reducing the numbers now would send a message to the obstructionists in Bosnia that they have succeeded in weeding us out and can resume the policies of division which have been so detrimental for this country and its citizens," he said.