Serbs in Kosovo convene parliament

Mitrovica: Serbs in Kosovo were due to convene their own parliament in the divided city of Mitrovica yesterday in a fresh challenge to the authority of the new state's ethnic Albanian leadership.

The assembly has no executive authority, but reflects a deepening ethnic partition of Kosovo since its Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February, backed by the West but opposed by Belgrade and its ally Russia.

Its establishment coincides with St Vitus Day, or Vidovdan, when Serbs mark the 1389 battle at the heart of the Serb claim to Kosovo as their own. The epic defeat to the Ottoman Turks remains the pivotal event in Serb history.

Ninety per cent of Kosovo's 2 million people are Albanians. But their declaration of independence after nine years as a ward of the United Nations is being challenged by Serbia and a thin slice of northern Kosovo dominated by 50,000 Serbs, just under half the remaining Kosovo Serb population.

Nato troops, including British reinforcements brought in at the end of May, manned checkpoints in armoured personnel carriers on roads leading to the capital, Pristina.

Symbolic

Hundreds of Serbs attended a religious service in the monastery town of Gracanica, and will travel north past Pristina to the site of 1389 battle later in the day, before the parliament sits in Mitrovica.

The assembly brings together local Serb officials from across Kosovo. It has no real executive authority, but will help "coordination" between Belgrade and the Serbs, officials say.

Kosovo's UN governor, Lamberto Zannier, has played down its significance, saying the assembly is merely "symbolic" and would change little on the ground. A UN spokesman said it was "not very serious" since it had no operational role.

But Kosovo Albanian leaders have condemned the move as a provocation. "It is an attempt to destabilise Kosovo," President Fatmir Sejdiu said.

The north, which backs Serbia, is beyond the institutional reach of Pristina and currently out of bounds for a new European Union police mission looking to take over law and order duties from the United Nations.

Serbs have violently rejected Kosovo's secession. They are boycotting the police force and courts.