The troops are part of a unit of 300 soldiers scheduled to arrive in the Balkan territory by September 16 for a six-month mission.

The battalion will replace a similar-sized Portuguese contingent that is wrapping up its own six-month mission.

The UN and NATO have controlled Kosovo since June 1999 following NATO's air war against Yugoslavia which forced then president Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his troops from the Albanian-dominated province.

Tensions have remained high with Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders eager for talks leading to independence, while Belgrade and the Kosovo Serbs want the territory to remain part of Serbia and Montenegro.

Lieutenant Colonel Vasco Sobreira, who will lead the latest unit of Portuguese troops to be sent to Kosovo, said the soldiers were ready for any possible conflict.

"We have been preparing for these scenarios for six months," he told Radio Renascenca before the troops departed from a military airport in Lisbon.

Portuguese forces have participated in NATO peacekeeping tasks in Kosovo since 1999.

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.