The Head of the Parliamentary Committee for Kosovo and Metohija Milovan Drecun said that Serbia cannot block the transformation of Kosovo’s Security Forces (KSF) into an army but can ask Washington and NATO to guarantee the force would not cross into the north, N1 reported last night.

Drecun added that the Belgrade – Pristina dialogue on normalisation of relations would continue and that Pristina made some moves to secure a better position in the final stage of negotiations in Brussels.

Asked by the N1’s Jugoslav Cosic in the show 'Pressing' how long the dialogue could be postponed, Drecun said that it wouldn’t be good if it failed and added that he believed the talks would resume after Pristina ''remove all obstacles which were methodically placed.”

He referred to the increase of import tariffs on goods from Serbia and Bosnia to 100 percent and the transformation of the KSF into an army. He said that he was convinced the obstacles would be removed because the US advocated a compromise solution and because, as he said, ''the alternative would be new conflicts, new violence, Greater Albania... ''

Commenting the announced creation of Kosovo’s army, Drecun said the West gave the green light for the move ''to help unite Pristina’s politically opposing sides and make them adopt a unique approach to the dialogue (with Belgrade).''

He said that the KSF had already become a ''typical military formation with four strike force units, a total of 2,500 members, with a plan to increase the troops figure to 5,000 soldiers with an operational reserve numbering 3,000 people.''

Drecun said Kosovo’s authorities tried to manoeuvre the creation of the army since it could not go through a legal proceeding without the support of Serb members of the parliament.