ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, April 2, 1996 TAG: 9604020077
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A3 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: TIRANA, ALBANIA
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
American troops serving with a U.N. peacekeeping mission in Macedonia will not necessarily go home when the NATO-led peace effort in nearby Bosnia is completed in December, Defense Secretary William Perry said Monday.
Speaking at the end of a one-day South Balkans defense ministers' conference, Perry praised the mission in Macedonia, which lies just east of Albania and north of Greece, as one of the most successful U.N. operations ever.
``It has accomplished its mission,'' he told a news conference. ``It has served to prevent a war in that area, a military conflict in that area. And in my opinion it should stay there as long as that mission needs to be accomplished.''
About 560 American troops are part of the 1,200-person U.N. contingent in Macedonia. Other forces are from Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
Perry would not say whether he favors pulling out of Macedonia once the Bosnia mission is completed. He and other officials said in 1993, when the United Nations sent troops to Macedonia, that it was needed mainly to prevent the Bosnia civil war from spreading south.
``I don't want to forecast that,'' Perry said.
``There are factors affecting the situation in Macedonia'' besides the Bosnia problem, he said. Among them are tensions between Serbs and ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, a Serbian province on Macedonia's northern border, as well as in Macedonia itself.
``Certainly a successful conclusion of the [Bosnia] mission would be a very positive factor, but it may not be sufficient'' to end peacekeeping in Macedonia, he said.
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