Thaci bows to pressure on his army plan

Hashim Thaçi on Thursday 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.

Thaçi 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 Serb population, who are hostile to the move. The majority of Kosovo's population is ethnic Albanian.

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

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

"We agree fully that this process should happen through constitutional changes," Thaçi told AFP on...