ethnic presidency said continued U.S. presence would help guarantee peace and stability in the Balkan country recovering from the 1992-95 war between Serbs, Muslims and Croats. "This is a very important decision for us Bosnians. This is proof that the United States will remain present in Bosnia and Herzegovina not only politically and economically but also militarily," Sulejman Tihic told reporters. EU officials were not immediately available for comment. The mission in Bosnia is seen as a big challenge for the 25-nation bloc, which has earlier sent relatively small peacekeeping missions to Macedonia and Congo. NATO will keep an office in the capital Sarajevo to help the authorities hunt war crimes fugitives and with defence reform. U.S. troops accounted for one third of NATO's 60,000-strong peacekeeping mission deployed in Bosnia to implement the U.S.-brokered Dayton peace treaty in 1995. The force has gradually been reduced to less than 10,000. Tihic dismissed public and political protests against sending a multi-ethnic de-mining unit to Iraq, adding that Bosnia's main political parties had agreed on the issue. The United States, which has pledged $15 million for defence reform in Bosnia this year, will cover half the annual cost of the de-mining unit of five million Bosnian marka ($3.2 million). --SP 2048 Local Time 1748 GMT
