President of Kosovo Threatens to Quit

Kosovo's president said on Friday he would resign and force a parliamentary election if lawmakers do not approve changes that would effectively create a national army under a plan opposed by the country's ethnic Serb minority and its NATO and U.S allies, according to Reuters.

''If members of Parliament do not vote ''for'', I will step down as President at the same moment'', announced Hachim Thaci.

According to him, a legislature that will not vote for the army of its own country should go home, adding that he will overcome objections from NATO allies by coordinating the plan ''100 percent'' with them.

The plan to replace Kosovo's lightly armed security forces with a regular army has drawn strong objections from the country's ethnic Serb minority, whose delegates in parliament have vowed to block it, and as well as the USA and NATO.

Serbian lawmakers have insisted that such a change would require amending the country's constitution.

NATO has said it has no plans to leave Kosovo - a landlocked country of 1.8 million people that borders Serbia, Albania, Montenegro and Macedonia - but the dispute with key allies over the army has alarmed some.

"The United States is very important for Kosovo and its people," Arben Gashi, a lawmaker from Prime Minister Isa Mustafa's Democratic League of Kosovo (LDK) party said on Friday. "As for Hashim Thaci, he can easily be replaced."