A moderate Serb coalition in Kosovo split with official Belgrade policy today, announcing it would end its 16-month boycott of the province's Albanian-dominated parliament.
"Since the scheduled meeting with the highest officials in Belgrade was postponed ... we took a decision today to join the work of the Kosovo parliament," Randjel Nojkic, a member of the Serb list for Kosovo and Metohija, told reporters.
The move is certain to be welcomed by the United Nations, which is reviewing whether the province it runs is stable and democratic enough to start "final status" talks.
Belgrade has withheld its blessing for Serbs to enter the Kosovo assembly since Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica engineered a massive Serb boycott of elections in October.
Belgrade does not want to be seen to be giving a helping hand to Kosovo's interim institutions, which are determined to win independence from Serbia in talks expected in the autumn.
Mr Nojkic said the coalition decided at a meeting in the northern town of Mitrovica to take up most of its eight seats at the assembly's next session, which has yet to be set.
Kosovo, where 90 per cent of the population is ethnic Albanian, became a UN protectorate in 1999 after 11 weeks of NATO bombing expelled Serb forces accused of atrocities against Albanian civilians in fighting separatist rebels. Some 180,000 Serbs fled fearing revenge attacks.
The 100,000 who remained live mainly in isolated enclaves patrolled by members of a 17,000-strong NATO-led peace force.
Serbs quit the previous parliament in March last year after Albanian riots and arson targeting minority areas killed 19 people and left 800 homes torched. Less than one percent of Kosovo Serbs then voted in an election in October.
