(13 Dec 2018) Kosovo's Security Forces, the country's troops known as KSF, held exercises on Thursday, a day before the parliament votes to transform them into a regular Kosovo army .
Kosovo's parliament is expected to approve on Friday legislation turning an existing 4,000-strong security force into an expanded, lightly armed army.
KSF commander Lieutenant General Rrahman Rama said that there should be no fear from Kosovo's new army. It would not be "a threatening force for someone else."
Serbia alleges that the Kosovo army's main purpose is to ethnically cleanse Kosovo's Serbian-dominated north, a claim strongly denied by Kosovo.
Serbia's president warned that the planned forming of a Kosovo army will significantly worsen tensions in the region.
Kosovo's 1998-1999 war ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign in June 1999 that stopped a Serbian crackdown against the ethnic Albanian separatists.
Kosovo's 2008 independence is not recognised by Serbia.
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