Kosovo PM-elect vows independence in weeks

By Shaban Buza and Fatos Bytyci

PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - Ethnic Albanian former guerrilla Hashim Thaci was elected prime minister of Kosovo on Wednesday and vowed the breakaway province would declare independence from Serbia within weeks.

Fuelling speculation that Kosovo might strike out alone in February or March, Thaci told reporters: "I assure you that within a few weeks we will declare independence."

"Kosovo's independence is a done deal. We just need to declare it," he said, after parliament voted to endorse a "grand coalition" of Kosovo's two dominant parties.

Kosovo's 2 million Albanians -- the 90-percent majority -- are counting on the major Western powers to overrule opposition from Serbia and Russia and recognise the territory as the last state to be carved from the former Yugoslavia.

The 27-member European Union is striving for unity on statehood, and plans to deploy a police and justice mission to take over from the United Nations, which has run Kosovo since NATO drove out Serb forces in 1999.

The West wants Kosovo to wait until after a presidential election in Serbia on January 20, pitting pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic against an ultranationalist in a closely-fought race likely to run to a second round on February 3.

Thaci, who led a 1998-99 guerrilla insurgency to end a decade of Serb repression under late strongman Slobodan Milosevic, told the packed assembly that Kosovo was at "an historic crossroads".

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