Premier Kosovo doet oproep tot erkenning van zijn staat (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Kosovar Prime Mnister Hashim Thaci has in a comment for EUobserver encouraged non-recognising EU states to change their mind following an International Court of Justice (ICJ) opinion on independence.
"The circumstances that led to Kosovo's declaration of independence were, and are, unique. The narrowness of the court's ruling on this subject should reassure those countries that have been reluctant to recognise Kosovo," he said.
"Kosovo's declaration of independence is not a precedent, and attempts to argue that the court concluded otherwise or that its ruling opens a Pandora's Box are wrong."
The ICJ in the Hague on 22 July said Kosovo's 2008 unilateral declaration of independence did not violate international law.
But five EU states - Cyprus, Greece, Romania, Slovakia and Spain - most of which have separatist problems at home, have not yet followed suit with the US and the rest of the EU in recognising Kosovo as an independent country.
Mr Thaci blamed the split with Serbia on the brutality of Slobodan Milosevic.
"The people of my country did not arrive at the decision to declare their independence lightly or in a political vacuum. We were long deprived of the most basic human rights, and in 1999 subject to a murderous campaign of ethnic cleansing from a Serbian government led by Slobodan Milosevic," he said.
He added that any partition of Kosovo is out of the question, amid chatter in EU diplomatic circles that northern Mitrovica, an ethnic-Serb-dominated Kosovo region under de facto Serb control, could be given some form of autonomy.
"We cannot, and we will not, discuss Kosovo's status as an independent sovereign state, Kosovo's territorial integrity, or the creation of de facto or de jure autonomous regions within our borders," Mr Thaci said.