TIRANA - The presence of NATO in Albania will continue even after the end of its humanitarian mission to help Kosovo refugees return to their homes, said Foreign Minister Paskal Milo on Friday.

Milo told a press interview that NATO presence in Albania is not related only to the humanitarian aspect of its mission. "In the first place, NATO is here because Albania is a member of Partnership for Peace Initiative," Milo told daily Koha Jone in an interview.

NATO established an office in Albania last year to help in the process of recovery of the Albanian army that virtually collapsed during the 1997 civil unrest, as well as assist in the management and security of the huge arsenal of weapons’ armories spread all over Albania.

"The Defence Ministry has signed a contract with NATO according to which the latter would keep its office open until the year 2000,"said Bardhyl Rredhi, coordinator close to NATO team in the Defence Ministry.

Rredhi said Albania wishes to extend the contract with NATO after the year 2000 until it joins the North Atlantic Organisation as a full member.

Foreign Minister said NATO and Albania have signed a number of various bilateral agreements, "which means its presence will be long-term and irrevocable... There will be absolutely no leaving of NATO forces or any absence of its presence in Albania."

A spokesman of the NATO humanitarian mission in Albania, AFOR, also confirmed that NATO’s presence in Albania will continue in the future.

"NATO will stay in Albania ... at its least, it may reduce its forces, but there are yet no plans to do even that," German Captain Wolfgang Greven, an official of the AFOR media centre, told a press conference in Tirana on Thursday.

"We do not have any plans on the reduction of AFOR forces which are acting within the framework of the NATO humanitarian mission," said Greven.

"We have by no means declared that NATO will leave Albania as the Albanian dailies write," he said, apparently referring to recent reports in several Albanian dailies alleging NATO forces will leave Albania as soon as they conclude their humanitarian mission to help the Kosovo refugees.

Greven said NATO forces would help the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Albanian government in the repatriation of Kosovo refugees that started on Thursday.