Luxembourg - NATO said its partner countries voiced strong backing yesterday for contingency plans announced on Thursday to deploy troops on Kosovo's borders if the crisis there escalates and threatens to spill over.
"Several ministers made the point they would be interested" in contributing to so-called preventive deployments, said a spokesperson. "We will be keeping them [partner states] very much in the picture," the official said.
He said no country had expressed opposition. Russia, which has a special, individual partnership link with NATO, has made clear its view that deploying sizeable forces on Kosovo's borders would require UN backing.