Thursday, February 21, 2008

Where the world stands on Kosovo's independence...

This will obviously be in the news for a while, so I thought I'd let people interested in the story of Kosovo's declaration of independence know about this Wikipedia page which is tracking international reaction and has handy tables of who's pro-independence and who's anti.

As of right now, leaving out the all of the essentially "neutral" and "wait and see" countries (including our own, for now) here's where things stand:

States recognizing Kosovo's independence or planning to (those that have already done so are in bold) :

The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, Afghanistan, Austria, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Pakistan, Turkey, Japan, Hungary, Senegal, Germany, Latvia, Norway, Malaysia, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the U.A.E.

States that have declared that they will not recognize Kosovo and States that have voiced concern (those that have merely expressed concern are not in bold):

Russia, Serbia, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia, Cyprus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka , Venezuela, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, China, Mexico, Phillipines, South Africa, Ukraine, New Zealand*

So there you have it. The pulse of the planet in a nutshell!

* Does not recognize unilateral moves. "It's never been the New Zealand Government's position to recognize in such circumstances. We will neither recognize nor not recognize". according to PM Helen Clark.

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1 comment:

The Mound of Sound said...

A country that has no economy will never be "independent" and that fits Kosovo to a T. Unemployment among the exploding and youthful population is enormous. Much of the national GDP is from international aid. Criminal gangs and a black market flourish. No, Kosovo will be a dependent for some time and NATO is just beginning to realize it has no easy way out.