PRISTINA, Dec 3: The Kosovo parliament on Friday elected former ethnic Albanian rebel commander Ramush Haradinaj as prime minister of the UN-run southern Serbian province, drawing a furious response from Belgrade.

Haradinaj, 35, was a senior commander of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerilla movement during the 1998-99 separatist war against Serbian forces, and has recently been questioned by United Nations war crimes investigators.

His nomination for prime minister by President Ibrahim Rugova following October parliamentary polls has been questioned by European officials, although he has not been charged with any crimes and denies all the allegations.

European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana has said a former rebel leader under investigation for war crimes may not be the "most appropriate" man to lead Kosovo, an independence-seeking mainly ethnic Albanian province. But officials with the UN mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), established after a NATO air campaign ended a brutal Serbian crackdown in the province in 1999, have not objected to his nomination.

The senior US diplomat in Kosovo, Philip Goldberg, said Washington was ready to "work very close" with the new government, but would wait and see if it succeeded at democratic reform. -AFP