PRISTINA, Serbia—Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Sunday, ending a long chapter in the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.
The proclamation was made by leaders of the breakaway province's 90 percent ethnic Albanian majority, including former guerrillas who fought for independence in a 1998-99 war which claimed about 10,000 civilian lives.
"We, the leaders of our people, democratically elected, through this declaration proclaim Kosovo an independent and sovereign state," said the text read out in parliament by Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci.
Kosovo will be a "society that respects human dignity" and is committed to confronting the "painful legacy of the recent past, in a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness".
All 109 deputies present at the session in the capital Pristina voted in favour with a show of hands. Eleven deputies from ethnic minorities, including Serbs, were absent.
Belgrade bitterly opposes the secession. Backed by Russia, Serbs vow never to give up the territory, in which their history goes back 1,000 years.
But the West supports the demand of Kosovo's 2 million ethnic Albanians for their own state, nine years after NATO went to war to save them from Serbian forces.
as 'False State'
BELGRADE—Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica condemned Kosovo as a false state in a televised address to the nation on Sunday minutes after its mainly Albanian province declared independence.
He said Kosovo was propped up unlawfully by the United States which was "ready to violate the international order for its own military interests".
Kosovo will be the sixth state carved from the former Serbian-dominated Yugoslav federation since 1991, after Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Montenegro.
It will be the world's 193rd independent country but Serbia says it will never win a seat at the United Nations.
Serbs in the north of Kosovo will reject independence, cementing an ethnic partition that will weigh on the new state for years to come. Fewer than half of Kosovo's 120,000 remaining Serbs live in the north, while the rest are in scattered enclaves protected by NATO peacekeepers.
The United States and most EU members are expected to quickly recognise Kosovo, despite failing to win United Nations Security Council approval—blocked by Russia last year.
The EU will also send a supervisory mission to take over from the current U.N. authorities.
 Kosovo Albanian expatriates parade with Albanian, Swiss, US, and European Union flags on February 17, 2008 on a street in Lausanne, in western Switzerland. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images)
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 Hooligans clash with police in front of the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on February 17, 2008. (AFP/Getty Images)
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 Slovakian KFOR soldiers secure the street in Milosheva a route to Pristina, in Kosovo, Serbia. (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
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 French KFOR soldiers secure a street in the Serbian district of the divided town on the day their prime minister proclaimed Kosovo 'an independent, sovereign and democratic state' February 17, 2008 in Mitrovica, Serbia. (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
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