Kosovo's Albanian and Serb legislators meet in joint session for the first time in over a decade on Monday, launching an assembly intended to help bridge bitter ethnic divisions in the Yugoslav province.
The 120-seat legislative body, chosen in a general election last month, is due to begin its inaugural sitting at 11 a.m. (1000 GMT) under tight security in Pristina.
The assembly, dominated by independence-minded ethnic Albanian parties, was designed to give Kosovo substantial self-rule while the United Nations mission which has been governing the province since 1999 retains overall authority.
It is the first time the communities will be sharing such a forum since Slobodan Milosevic, the Serb nationalist and former Yugoslav leader, stripped Kosovo of its autonomy within Serbia in 1989. It was to end subsquent oppression of Kosovo's Albanian majority that NATO went to war against Yugoslavia in 1999.
The fact that majority Albanians and minority Serbs, as well as other smaller ethnic groups, are to take part in the assembly has raised hopes they can overcome divisions and build a multi-ethnic, democratic society, international observers say.
But they also stress it will be a severe test of whether Kosovo politicians are willing to set aside years of hatred and cooperate on basic issues like the economy and the environment.
"They have to show that they can govern this place," said Peter Palmer, Kosovo Project Director of the International Crisis Group think tank. "They are being tested."
(Xinhua News Agency December 10, 2001)
