Serbs in Kosovo were due to convene their own parliament in the divided city of Mitrovica yesterday in a fresh challenge to the authority of the new state's ethnic Albanian leadership. The assembly has no executive authority, but reflects a deepening ethnic partition of Kosovo since its Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in February, backed by the West but opposed by Belgrade and its ally Russia.

Its establishment coincides with St Vitus Day, or Vidovdan, when Serbs mark the 1389 battle at the heart of the Serb claim to Kosovo as their Jerusalem. The epic defeat to the Ottoman Turks remains the pivotal event in Serb history.

Ninety per cent of Kosovo's two million people are Albanians.

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