Kosovo Recognition - "All Promises No Official Recognition"

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AbdiWahab252
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Kosovo Recognition - "All Promises No Official Recognition"

Post by AbdiWahab252 »

No official recognition except for the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7251359.stm
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Re: Kosovo Recognition - "All Promises No Official Recognition"

Post by XidigtaJSL »

Bush, EU Allies Recognize Kosovo as Russians Protest (Update4)

By James G. Neuger

Feb. 18 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush and leading European allies offered diplomatic recognition to Kosovo, pledging economic and political aid for the newly independent state in the face of Serbian and Russian protests.

Bush's declaration and endorsements by the U.K., France, Germany and Italy provided a cloak of legitimacy for the mainly ethnic-Albanian state, which broke away from Serbia yesterday after a nine-year battle.

``The Kosovars are now independent,'' Bush said on NBC television's Today program during a trip to Africa, according to a transcript. ``It's something that I have advocated, along with my government.''

Europe and the U.S. are racing to line up international support for the territory of 2 million people, intent on writing a peaceful final chapter to the wars that ripped apart Yugoslavia in the 1990s.

Kosovo's parliament voted 109-0 yesterday to sever ties with Serbia, capping a struggle for statehood that began in 1999 when a NATO bombing campaign drove out Serb troops.

Alluding to the American role in that war, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement in Washington that the establishment of diplomatic relations ``will reaffirm the special ties that have linked together the people of the United States and Kosovo.''

In all, 17 European Union countries will recognize Kosovo this week and more will follow, German Foreign Minister Frank- Walter Steinmeier told a news conference after an EU meeting in Brussels.

German Declaration

The German government will make a formal declaration on Feb. 20. Germany is still nursing scars from its premature recognition of Slovenia and Croatia as the first breakaway Yugoslav republics in 1991, which opened up fissures within the EU and hastened Yugoslavia's slide into civil war.

``It's not the victory of one over the other, it's the victory of peace, the victory of good sense and certainly not the victory of Kosovars over the Serbs, it's the victory of the two populations,'' French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said.

Russia, which called an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting yesterday to protest Kosovo's breakaway, is counting on dissenting voices in the EU to build a case for keeping Kosovo part of Serbia.

EU Dissenters

While at least five EU countries -- Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain -- won't immediately recognize the new state, all of them offered to send experts as part of a 1,900-strong team of European police, customs and legal officials that will help manage Kosovo. Four of the dissenters - - Spain, Greece, Slovakia and Romania -- are part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

Some EU countries fear that recognizing the new state might embolden separatist movements within their own borders. The northern tier of Cyprus, for example, has been occupied by the Turkish army since 1974.

``We cannot recognize the secession of a part of a sovereign state that is a member of the United Nations,'' Cypriot Foreign Minister Erato Kozakou-Marcoullis said.

Kosovo's leaders promised to respect the rights of the Serb minority and not to challenge international frontiers. Kosovo has a 90 percent ethnic-Albanian majority, with an estimated 130,000 Serbs scattered along the northern and eastern border with Serbia and in isolated pockets. Yet the territory has near- mythic status in Serb culture, dating back to the defeat of Serb forces by Ottoman invaders in 1389.

NATO Peacekeepers

Legally part of Serbia after the 1999 war, Kosovo has been run by a European diplomat under a UN flag and policed by 16,000 NATO peacekeepers now on high alert to prevent renewed ethnic tensions. NATO almost lost control of the province during anti- Serb riots in 2004.

Serbia reacted to the declaration of independence by vowing to reassert authority over the breakaway state, and Russia condemned the unilateral move as a violation of international law.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica called the new Kosovo ``a fake state'' in the thrall of NATO and vowed to reincorporate the territory. Still, Serbia will respond peacefully and will ``leave the violence to the violators,'' he said yesterday.

Protests in Belgrade turned peaceful after a night in which youths smashed windows of McDonald's restaurants and the U.S. and Slovenian embassies, Agence France-Presse reported. More than 5,000 demonstrators marched through central Belgrade today, chanting ``Rise up, Serbia,'' AFP said.

Serbian Threats

Kosovo's proclamation without the unanimous endorsement of the UN Security Council creates a legal no-man's-land. Serbia threatened to downgrade relations with countries that recognize the new state and, as the supplier of 40 percent of Kosovo's electricity, could inflict harm on the aid-dependent economy.

EU leaders, in turn, are wooing Serbia with the promise of eventual membership, counting on recently re-elected pro-western President Boris Tadic to reconcile the 7.5 million Serbs to the loss of Kosovo. Tadic was sworn in for a second term last week, pledging to hold on to Kosovo while steering Serbia toward EU membership.

Nine years of western management have failed to lift Kosovo out of poverty. Unemployment is close to 50 percent, wealth per person is 5 percent of the EU average, and corruption and organized crime are rampant, the European Commission says.

European governments will hold a donors conference in coming months and plan to commit 1 billion euros ($1.5 billion) to shore up Kosovo's economy over the next couple of years, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said.

U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Europe will ``help the western Balkans close two decades of violence and conflict and strive and open a period, whatever the strains and the stresses and difficulties, of security and stability.''

To contact the reporter on this story: James G. Neuger in Brussels at jneuger@bloomberg.net .
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Re: Kosovo Recognition - "All Promises No Official Recognition"

Post by AbdiWahab252 »

Xidigta,

Abayo thanks for the update.
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Re: Kosovo Recognition - "All Promises No Official Recognition"

Post by XidigtaJSL »

France, Germany, Great Britain and the US have all extended recognition to Kosovo despite protests from Serbia recalling its Ambassador to Washington

Just correcting you hutu
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Re: Kosovo Recognition - "All Promises No Official Recognition"

Post by AbdiWahab252 »

Xidigta,

Abayo, when I posted this no other government recognized the Kosovo Republic except for Afghanistan.
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