Kosovo to test Serbia with vote to build an army

Kosovo will vote Friday on whether to create its own army, in a heavily symbolic show of independence from Serbia that has inflamed tensions between the former wartime foes.

Since breaking away from Belgrade in a guerilla war in the late 1990s, Kosovo has relied on NATO-led forces to guarantee its security.

But at the end of the week – dubbed “Army week” by one Kosovo newspaper – Pristina lawmakers will vote on legislation to transform its own lightly-armed emergency response force, known as Kosovo Security Force (KSF), into a professional army.

The measure is widely expected to pass as it draws support from all political parties in ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo, except for a minority of ethnic Serb MPs who have boycotted the sessions.

But there is outrage in Belgrade, which refuses to accept the former southern province’s independence and has cast the army plans as a threat to the 120,000 Serbs still living in Kosovo.

Last week Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabic said she “hoped” Serbia would not need to use its army against Kosovo, though it is “one of the options on the table.”

Twenty years ago, 13,000 lives were lost – mostly ethnic Albanians – when Serb troops clashed with Kosovo’s ethnicAlbanian independence fighters.

Serbian tabloids have warned of a possible new conflict, with the daily Informer stating “War with Kosovo will start on December 15,” the day after the army vote.

But analysts say it is more likely to remain a war of words.

It will take up to a decade for the KSF to be combat-ready, according to officials.

Even then, its new 5,000 troops will be minnows compared to Serbia’s some 30,000-strong army in addition to fighter planes.