Serbia talks up armed intervention as Kosovo OKs new army
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.
While NATO’s chief called the action by Kosovo “ill-timed,” the U.S. approved it as “Kosovo’s sovereign right” as an independent nation that unilaterally broke away from Serbia in 2008.
All 107 lawmakers present in the 120-seat Kosovo parliament voted in favour of passing three draft laws to expand an existing 4,000 Kosovo Security Force and turn it 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 1998-1999. It has warned bluntly that it may respond with an armed intervention in its former province, with Prime Minister Ana Brnabic saying that’s “one of the options on the table.”