PRISTINA: Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a move that has angered Serbia, which does not recognise the former province’s independence.
Kosovo has been guarded by NATO-led peacekeeping troops since it broke away from Belgrade in a bloody separatist war in 1998-99.The new laws will transform a small crisis-response outfit, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), into an defence army with 5,000 troops.
“This vote today begins a new era for our country. From this moment we officially have the army of Kosovo,” parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli announced as MPs hugged each other after the session, boycotted by minority Serb politicians. The vote has delighted many Kosovo Albanians, with several hundred gathering in Pristina’s main square to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, which was declared in 2008.
“This is an enormous emotion, we are happy that the creation of our country is being completed,” Vlora Rexhepi, a 23-year-old student, told AFP as a group of musicians dressed in traditional costumes played for the crowd.
Writing on Facebook, Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci hailed the army vote as “the best gift for the end of the year season. “After two decades of hard work, we are finally closing down the state-building process,” he wrote.
While the move is a mostly symbolic flaunting of Kosovo’s sovereignty, Serbia — which still considers the former province a renegade territory — has castigated the move as a threat to regional stability. Responding in Belgrade, Serbia’s Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said it was “a hard day,” but that her country would “stay on its path of peace and prosperity”.
In particular, Belgrade has been sounding the alarm over the safety of 120,000 Serbs still living in Albanian-majority Kosovo, mainly in the north near their contested border. Those Serb communities are loyal to Belgrade and also broadly against the army plan. Several hundred students protested Friday in the Serb-half of the city of Mitrovica.
Session going on in UK parliament. —Reuters/FileLONDON: Foreign states are becoming bolder in their attempts to...
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