KFOR Mission to Hold 3-Day Military Drills in Kosovo This Week - Reports

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The NATO-led Kosovo Force (KFOR) will conduct routine military exercises in the western part of the breakaway region from September 5-7, Kosovar media reported on Monday.

The exercises will be carried out by the Western Multinational Regional Command and focus "on the unit's operational readiness procedures and preparation," the mission said in a statement cited by a Kosovar newspaper.

During the drills, KFOR soldiers and vehicles will be stationed near Krusevo village and Decan Monastery, the statement said, adding that the exercises will include both day and night ground movements and involve convoys of heavy engineering equipment.

NATO has stepped up its presence in self-proclaimed Kosovo, with 500 Turkish servicemen arriving in Kosovo in June after the escalation of the already tense relations between Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians at the end of May, which resulted in clashes that left dozens of people injured.

In 1999, an armed confrontation between Albanian separatists from the Kosovo Liberation Army and the Serbian army led to a bombing of what was then the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by NATO forces. In June 1999, NATO stationed its forces in Kosovo.