Kosovo prime minister calls parliament to declare independence

Pristina, Serbia: Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci on Sunday summoned parliament to a special session to declare Kosovo's independence from Serbia, a government source said.

Major Western powers, such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany, back the Albanian majority's demand for its own state.

Serbia and Russia are strongly opposed.

Although Kosovo formally remains part of Serbia, Kosovo has been administered by the UN since 1999, when Nato airstrikes ended the late Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic's brutal crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists.

Ninety per cent of Kosovo's 2 million people are ethnic Albanians who are mostly moderate or non-practising Muslims and they see no reason to stay joined to the rest of Christian Orthodox Serbia.