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TORONTO (Reuters) - Outgoing NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana asserted Tuesday that the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) "doesn't exist anymore."
Solana said a NATO-brokered agreement allowing KLA members to form a 5,000-strong Kosovo Protection Force spelled the end of the ethnic Albanian guerrilla organization and the beginning of a new, multiethnic Kosovo.
But in a clear indication that NATO is a lot less confident than it pretends in public, Secretary of Defense William Cohen told his alliance counterparts not to even think about reducing their peacekeeping contingents in Kosovo.
Cohen was attending a two-day informal meeting of NATO defense ministers in Toronto, with Solana in the chair for the last time before handing over to George Robertson of Britain next month.
The meeting made much of the military-technological "lessons of Kosovo" and how European allies should reach for their checkbooks and follow the high-tech lead of the United States.
But ministers sidestepped tougher questions about the final status of Kosovo and the fact that it appears headed for independence whether the West likes it or not.
Yugoslavia and Russia have accused NATO of failing to secure genuine demobilization and disarmament by the KLA, as required by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244.
It was farcical to maintain that signing an accord to change the name and the uniform of the guerrillas would change their nature or basic aspirations at a stroke, Belgrade said.
"This is a smokescreen to cover (NATO's) own inability to control the situation," Serbian Deputy Information Minister Miodrag Popovic commented.
The KLA has handed in about 10,000 guns to NATO.
But alliance military sources say there is hardly any doubt that many more weapons remain hidden, including heavy arms and armor salvaged from Serb units that were pounded by NATO during 11 weeks of bombing.
The guerrillas themselves say they see the new civilian force -- which is to have French-designed green uniforms and a United Nations payroll -- as the kernel of what the future army of an independent Kosovo.
"I think the whole process is going in the right direction ... I see the Kosovo Protection Corps as a core of a Kosovo military force in future," senior KLA logistics officer Hysen Geci told Reuters in Kosovo.
NATO insisted throughout its bombing campaign to force Belgrade into compliance with international demands on Kosovo that it was "not the air force of the KLA."
But Western diplomats say the KLA has astonished the West by its ability to capitalize on NATO's action, stubbornly adhering to its own separatist agenda while paying lip-service to the internationally-approved program for a multiethnic, autonomous Kosovo.
An independent Kosovo would immediately come under pressure from within to join Tirana in the creation of a Greater Albania, a move which would severely destabilize the Balkans and put at risk NATO's achievements in holding Bosnia together.
A NATO official briefing reporters said Robertson had advocated an election in Kosovo as early as next spring, to woo the restless guerrilla leadership over to party politics and power via the ballot box.
The official noted that the new Kosovo Protection Force would also be "open to Serbs" in Kosovo. But the prospect of Serbs joining former KLA guerrillas they regard as terrorist killers seemed far-fetched.
The official said defense ministers thanked Supreme Allied Commander General Wesley Clark for his 11th-hour mission to the KLA obtained the "transformation" agreement and averted an embarrassing challenge to NATO during the Toronto meeting.
"None of them wanted a crisis," he said.