Kosovo parliament convening to approve formation of an army
Kosovo's parliament is convening to approve the formation of an army, a move that has angered Serbia which says it would threaten peace in the war-scarred region.
The 120-seat parliament on Friday will vote on three laws to turn the existing 4,000-member Kosovo Security Force into a regular, lightly armed army.
Ethnic Serb lawmakers are expected to boycott the vote.
Serbia fears the movie's main purpose is to ethnically cleanse Kosovo's Serbian-dominated north, something strongly denied by Pristina.
In a sign of defiance, Serbs in the north displayed Serbian flags on streets and balconies while NATO-led peacekeepers deployed on a bridge in the ethnically divided northern town of Mitrovica.
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic also is to visit Serbian troops on the border with Kosovo in an apparent sabre-rattling move.
The US Ambassador in Pristina, Philip S. Kosnett met on Thursday with the KSF commander "to underscore the US Government's commitment to the KSF's evolution as a defensive force serving all of Kosovo's communities and reflective of the country's multi-ethnic character."
"Let's remember that a country's security depends on the quality of its security relationships — and peaceful, mutually beneficial relations with its neighbours — as much as on the strength and professionalism of its armed forces," he tweeted Friday.
The new army will preserve its former name — Kosovo Security Force — but now with a new mandate.
In about a decade the army will have 5,000 troops and 3,000 reservists, essentially operating as a security force handling crisis response and civil protection operations.
Kosovo's 1998-199 war ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign in June 1999 that stopped a Serbian crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists.
Kosovo's 2008 independence isn't recognised by Serbia.
(With inputs from agencies.)