Kosovo Votes To Create Its Own Army, Enraging Serbia

Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that prompted outrage in Serbia, which does not recognise its former province's independence.

Pristina, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 15th Dec, 2018 ) :Kosovo on Friday passed laws to build an army, asserting its statehood in a US-backed move that prompted outrage in Serbia, which does not recognise its 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.

Now, new legislation 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," parliamentary speaker Kadri Veseli announced as MPs embraced each other after the session, boycotted by minority Serb politicians.

The vote has delighted many Kosovo Albanians, with several hundred gathering in the main street of capital Pristina to celebrate the army as a new pillar of their independence, 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.

Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci hailed it as "the best gift for the end of the yearseason".

"We are finally closing down the state-building process," he wrote on Facebook.