NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen has stated that the situation in north Kosovo and the role of KFOR will be one of the key points of the agenda of the upcoming meeting of NATO defence ministers in Brussels on October 5-6.

We will discuss the developments in Kosovo. We have seen how quickly tensions can increase and how important the role of the NATO mission is, Rasmussen stated in Brussels on Monday, Voice of America reported.

Rasmussen said that the role of KFOR in Kosovo is to guarantee security for all citizens of Kosovo regardless of their ethnicity, and underlined that the mission will continue to act in the same manner - determined, careful, unbiased and in keeping with its mandate.

Commenting the claims that KFOR soldiers used live ammunition when firing at Serbs at the Jarinje administrative crossing, the NATO official said that this was an act of self-defence, and that soldiers have right to act like that.

Primarily, KFOR acted in self-defence. I have received detailed information and I am completely certain that the troops operated within their mandate, Rasmussen said, calling on all parties to restrain from unilateral actions and inflammatory statements.

I urge all parties to put their efforts in the dialogue instead of confrontation, because the interest of all Kosovo inhabitants is to have stability and security, while NATO supports their efforts to join the Euro-Atlantic family, he said.

According to him, the soldiers have done so much to ease the tensions in the previous months and keep an unbiased approach in resolving the situation.

According to our mandate, we are there to provide safe conditions and freedom of movement. In that sense, we are helping EULEX, while according to the agreement KFOR is the third line, given that the first one are the Kosovo policemen and the second is EULEX, Rasmussen said.