The Balkan countries remain a critical and vulnerable hotspot, President Giorgio Napolitano told Italian peacekeepers serving there on Monday.
In a video hook-up with soldiers in Kosovo and Sarajevo, Napolitano said he hoped that Balkan countries would one day join the 27-nation European Union.
If that happens, he said, ''it would certainly prove to be a guarantee that a solution to their complex problems may be found''.
He singled out relations between the minority Serb population in Kosovo and majority ethnic Albanians as one of the thorniest and which makes the deployment of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers ''indispensable''.
''Italy has contributed (to the mission) and we are certain it will continue to do so,'' he said.
Italy is the biggest contributor to KFOR with 2,567 troops.
Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.
It won recognition from 53 nations, including the US and major EU countries but Serbia and its ally Russia have said they will block it from obtaining a seat in the United Nations.
From 1999 to 2008 the former Serbian province was administered by the UN.
Reconciliation between the two ethnic groups has so far remained elusive.
