U.S. Says It Won’t Increase Troops in Region

Amid continuing skirmishes in northern Macedonia, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Wednesday said the United States has “no plans” to send ground troops to the Balkan nation or increase the number of American peacekeepers in neighboring Kosovo.

But Rumsfeld, appearing at the Pentagon with British Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, said the U.S. has been shifting troops in Kosovo to the border, which ethnic Albanian fighters have been crossing en route to Macedonia.

Other U.S officials noted that NATO forces in Kosovo have been stepping up patrols, detaining suspected ethnic Albanian fighters and searching for arms caches at the border.

NATO peacekeepers have been serving since June 1999 in Kosovo, a province of Serbia, Yugoslavia’s main republic. They entered the mostly ethnic Albanian province after a 78-day air campaign by the alliance drove out Yugoslav and Serbian forces that were repressing the population.

Ethnic Albanians make up about a quarter of Macedonia’s population and also have long complained of discrimination.

NATO officials in Belgium on Wednesday asked member countries to provide an additional 1,400 troops to strengthen the alliance’s 20,000-member force in Kosovo. NATO said the troops are needed to disrupt the flow of arms and rebels across the border.

From the start of his campaign for the White House, President Bush has declared that he wants to hold steady, or even reduce, the size of U.S. forces in the Balkans. The U.S. has 5,600 troops in Kosovo.

Hoon, in remarks at the Pentagon, made clear that his country also has no desire to increase its troop commitment. The new conflict “clearly is a matter for Macedonia, in the first place, to resolve,” he said.

In congressional testimony, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top general argued that the alliance should not dispatch troops to deal with a Macedonian conflict.

U.S. Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, the supreme allied commander in Europe, told the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee that help should be limited to such matters as intelligence and advice. The assistance will help alleviate what he said “is a political problem, not a military problem.”

He also warned that the mountainous, wooded terrain along the Kosovo border is “enormously difficult” to patrol.

Nonetheless, the State Department said Wednesday that the U.S. and NATO were doing their part to deal with escalating clashes in Macedonia.

“We have stepped up our patrols, we’ve detained individuals, we have found armed caches on that part of the border. And NATO has put another 300 troops on the job,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “We think we are doing our part in terms of denying safe haven on the Kosovo side of the border.”

The State Department said it is also looking on an “urgent basis” at how else to assist Macedonia, particularly in civil programs that address the political aspirations of the ethnic Albanian community.

Times staff writer Robin Wright contributed to this report.