U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld indicated on Friday that America is looking to other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) allies to assume a greater responsibility in the troubled Balkan province of Kosovo.

"I am personally hoping that we can continue to reduce some of our forces there," he said in an interview with the London Financial Times, although he also said "we all went in together and we have said we will come out together."

In Kosovo, NATO maintains a 16,000-strong mission, of which the United States has about 1,700 troops.

Kosovo, which officially remains a province of Serbia-Montenegro, has been run by the United Nations and NATO since mid-1999, when the alliance drove out the forces of the then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, accusing them of human rights abuses during their crackdown on separatist Albanian rebels.

Rumsfeld's comments prompted an immediate reaction, with the Financial Times quoting an unnamed NATO official as saying, "Everyone understands the pressure the U.S. is under... but now is not the time to talk about reducing the U.S. presence."

Rumsfeld's remarks come at a time when his country is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon's bid for a greater NATO role in the latter country has also met resistance.

The U.S. administration faces growing public unease over the Iraq war, which is costing more than 4 billion U.S. dollars a month and has left more than 2,240 armed forces personnel dead.

The Pentagon hopes to drop the number of troops in Iraq to below 100,000 before the end of 2006, from the current 138,000.

Rumsfeld also signed an order last December to reduce U.S. troops in Afghanistan from 19,000 to 16,000 by March this year, while the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force was expected to extend from the north and the west of Afghanistan to the volatile south of the country.

Source: Xinhua