|
|
Mozambique: Country Still Thinking About Kosovo Recognition
 |
 |
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||
|
||||||||||
Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
27 February 2008
Posted to the web 27 February 2008
Maputo
The Mozambican government has not yet taken a position on whether to recognise Kosovo, the former Serbian province that declared its independence 10 days ago.
"We shall wait for the appropriate moment", said Deputy Foreign Minister Henrique Banze, cited in Wednesday's issue of the daily newsheet "Diario de Noticias".
"It's a very sensitive matter and like all matters of this kind, it demands a lot of thought", said Banze. "Our government will work so that it may make the most appropriate decision in this case".
To date 25 countries have formally recognised Kosovo. A further six have initiated the recognition procedure, but are awaiting ratification by parliament or some other top level institution. Among these 31 countries are 14 of the European Union's 25 member countries, the United States, Australia, Switzerland, Norway and several Moslem countries. So far the only African country to have recognised Kosovo is Senegal.
|
Kosovo was part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries, but was absorbed into Serbia in 1912, during the First Balkan War. Under the federal Yugoslav government established by Josip Tito after World War II, Kosovo was granted a high degree of autonomy, not far short of being a full republic in the federation.
The Kosovo crisis began when, in 1989, the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic, in its disastrous drive for Serbian hegemony over the former Yugoslavia, tore up Kosovar autonomy. Attempted ethnic cleansing of the Albanian-speaking majority of the Kosovar population followed, and in 1999 NATO forces intervened to prevent a repetition of the genocidal actions Milosevic and his allies had already undertaken in Bosnia.
Kosovo has been under effective NATO rule since then. Negotiations on a final constitutional settlement, began in 2006, but made no headway. Since the great majority of Kosovo's population clearly wanted a clean break from Serbia, independence was declared on 17 February.
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Make allAfrica.com your home page | RSS Feed | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top | Site Guide | Who We Are | Advertising | Search | Subscribe | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Questions or Comments? Contact us. Read our Privacy Statement. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
