Kosovo's president bows to pressure on his army plan

Kosovo's President Hashim Thaci today gave up on his plans for a rapid transformation of the nation's defence force into an army, ceding to strong opposition from Western allies.

Thaci had submitted to the parliament in early March a draft bill to establish a regular army for Kosovo by changing the current law on the Kosovo Security Force (KSF).

It would have been done without amending the constitution and would therefore circumvent a likely veto by Kosovo's ethnic Serb minority, who are hostile to the move. The majority of Kosovo's population is ethnic Albanian.

Since Kosovo's 1998-1999 war with Serbia, NATO-led multinational troops have been deployed in the territory which is currently not allowed its own army.

But now Thaci is endorsing the process of a constitutional amendment.

"We agree fully that this process should happen through constitutional changes," Thaci told

(This article has not been edited by DNA's editorial team and is auto-generated from an agency feed.)