NICOSIA, Jan 27 (AFP) - Hundreds of peacekeeping troops will begin leaving Cyprus early next week as part of cuts announced by UN chief Kofi Annan after his reunification plan for the island was rejected by Greek Cypriots, a UN spokesman said Thursday.
Annan said the Cyprus peacekeeping force (UNFICYP) would be reduced by a third from the current level of 1,230 but retain its original mandate of maintaining order and preventing a recurrence of fighting.
"The restructuring is being implemented in a systematic fashion," UN spokesman Brian Kelly told AFP.
"So, by the end of January UNFICYP's military strength will be reduced from 1,230 to around 900 en route to the 860 target which will be reached by late March-early April."
The troop reductions will be shared equally between each of the contributing countries, with all of the main contingents cut by around 30 percent.
"The British, Slovak and Argentinian contingents will keep their level of responsibility in each sector. There will be just fewer troops," said Kelly.
The island's internationally recognized Greek Cypriot government had suggested it would like to see the withdrawal of the entirety of Britain's 412-strong contingent, because of what it sees as London's bias towards the Turkish Cypriot community.
As part of the cutbacks, UNFICYP is to abandon fixed observation posts and camps in favour of mobile units and helicopter patrols.
UN officials say the scaling down is justified as incidents on the armistice line that divides the island are running at a quarter of the level they were in 1999.
The last serious outbreak of violence was the killing of two Greek Cypriots by Turkish security forces during Green Line demonstrations in 1996.
Ironically, approval of Annan's reunification blueprint would have seen the United Nation's peecekeeping strength on the island expanded to some 5,000, albeit in a different role.
But although the plan was resoundingly approved by Turkish Cypriot voters in a referendum last April, it was heavily rejected by Greek Cypriots.
UNFICYP was first deployed in 1964 after communal disturbances resulted in many Turkish Cypriots retreating to ethnic enclaves.
The island has been divided into two ethnic zones since 1974 when Turkey invaded its northern third following a Greek Cypriot coup seeking union with Greece.
01/27/2005 19:41 GMT - AFP