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Most European Union states support ending the bloc's military mission in Bosnia and replacing it with a civilian mission, French officials said on Wednesday.
The European Union has a force of about 2,200 troops in Bosnia. The peacekeepers deployed in 2004, taking over from a NATO force. Last November, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the force for another year.
"There is more than a large consensus to say the mission has no reason to go on in the current form," a French official said after informal talks among EU defense ministers in Deauville, France. He said a decision could be taken at a formal ministerial meeting on Nov. 10.
"There is a consensus to get proposals in November to close the military part and to replace it with a more civilian operation that needs to be defined."
Officials from the defense ministry of France, current holder of the EU presidency, said there was a consensus among military leaders that the military objectives of the force had for the most part been achieved.
French officials said one scenario could be the provision of a rapid reaction force able to intervene in the event of a deterioration of the situation.
Last year the European Union cut the number of troops in the force, known as EUFOR, from more than 6,000.
The peace accord that ended the 1992-95 Bosnian war divided Bosnia into two autonomous parts, the Serb Republic and the Muslim-Croat Federation.
PHOTO CAPTION
EU peacekeepers in Bosnia
Reuters
