BRUSSELS (AFP)--A new multiethnic, North Atlantic Treaty Organization-trained Kosovo police and security force will be launched next week to eventually replace the disbanding Albanian-run local police force, NATO said Wednesday. 

"On Jan. 20, the KPC (Kosovo Protection Corps) will be disbanded. On the 21st of January, the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) will be stood up," NATO spokesman James Appathurai told reporters in Brussels. 

The lightly armed KSF will have 2,500 officers and 800 reservists. 

While the new force will come into existence and begin training next Friday, Appathurai said it was unlikely to become a fully functioning force "before the middle of the year." 

NATO has agreed to train up the force, which includes military and civilian members, as well as to oversee the dissolution of the existing police force, which is largely made up of former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), the separatist guerrilla group which fought Serb forces in 1998-99. 

Kosovo, a southern province of Serbia, declared its independence last February, almost nine years after NATO bombing drove out Serbian forces waging a crackdown on separatists from its ethnic Albanian majority. 

It has since been recognized by more then 50 countries, including most of the European Union states and the U.S. 

However, Serbia and the Serb minority - the estimated 100,000 people who stayed in Kosovo after the end of 1998-99 war - oppose the move. 

"Training for the civilian elements of the Kosovo Security Force will begin immediately and at a certain stage, I think relatively soon, interviews for the military personnel will take place," said Appathurai. 

The force will be led by Kosovar authorities "but with a role for (NATO's) KFOR as well, to ensure that the KSF is democratically controlled, multiethnic and meeting the appropriate legal and other standards."