As Kosovo OKs forming army, Serbia talks up military action

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Serbia threatened a possible armed intervention in Kosovo after the Kosovo parliament on Friday overwhelmingly approved the formation of an army. Belgrade called the move a “direct threat to peace and stability” in the Balkans and lashed out at the United States for supporting it.

All 107 lawmakers present in the 120-seat Kosovo parliament voted in favor of three draft laws to expand the 4,000member Kosovo Security Force into a regular, lightly armed army. Ethnic Serb lawmakers boycotted the vote.

Serbia insists the new army violates a U.N. resolution that ended Serbia’s bloody crackdown on Kosovar separatists in 1998-99. It has warned that it may respond with an armed intervention in its former province.