PRISTINA, Kosovo (AP) — Kosovo's parliament is convening to approve the formation of an army, a move that has angered Serbia which says it would threaten peace in the war-scarred region.

The 120-seat parliament on Friday will vote on three laws to turn an existing 4,000-member Kosovo Security Force into a regular lightly armed army. Ethnic Serb lawmakers were expected to boycott the vote.

Serbia fears the move's main purpose is to ethnically cleanse Kosovo's Serbian-dominated north, something strongly denied by Pristina.

Kosovo's 1998-199 war ended with a 78-day NATO air campaign in June 1999 that stopped a Serbian crackdown against ethnic Albanian separatists.

Kosovo's 2008 independence isn't recognized by Serbia.