Showing posts with label breakaway states. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breakaway states. Show all posts

Thursday, March 15, 2012

Kosovo Diplomatic Recognition Continues

Country Name: Kosovo (English, Serbian), Kosova (Albanian)
Official Name: Republic of Kosovo (English), Republika e Kosovës (Albanian),
Republika Kosovo (Serbian)
News Categories: Recognition, Partially Recognized States, Breakaway States
Summary: The Republic of Kosovo has continued to receive diplomatic recognition from other countries, despite widespread opposition to its 2008 declaration of independence from Serbia. Thirteen more U.N. members have declared their recognition of independent Kosovo just within the last year.

Flag of the Republic of Kosovo
Flag of the Republic of Kosovo.
Image by Cradel (source). License: CC BY-SA
Full Story
The majority of recently independent countries, such as South Sudan and Montenegro, enjoy unopposed recognition from the U.N. and its members. However, acceptance into the international community doesn't always come so easily. Kosovo is one example: because it declared its independence without first coming to an agreement with its former host country (unlike South Sudan and Montenegro), it has struggled to gain acceptance as a sovereign state. The last of the Balkan countries to declare independence after the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Kosovo was first separated unofficially from the country in 1999, when NATO intervened militarily in the province to stop Serbian government violence against ethnic Albanians. The Albanians are a cultural group from southeastern Europe who speak a unique language only distantly related to other European tongues, and like the Bosniaks in nearby Bosnia & Herzegovia, are one of the few majority-Muslim European peoples. They also form a majority of the population in the neighboring country of Albania.

Map of Kosovo within Serbia
Kosovo, claimed as a province of Serbia, is
policed by U.N. and E.U. peacekeepers. The
Republic of Kosovo also governs the region,
except for the Serbian-loyalist north. Map is
my own work, based on these two blank
maps by Nord-NordWest. License: CC BY-SA
Policed by a U.N. peacekeeping mission since 1999, most of Kosovo has never since been controlled by the Yugoslav (now Serbian) government, though the U.N. still officially considers it to be a province of Serbia. Despite fierce political opposition from Serbia, Russia, and other countries, as well as from the ethnic Serb minority within Kosovo, the local government declared independence in 2008. The self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo government has since administered the territory alongside the U.N. and another police force sent by the European Union, though the Northern Kosovo area, a Serb-majority region, has resisted independence and continues to support the Serbian government in Belgrade, even setting up roadblocks to keep out the Kosovan police - a sort of breakaway state within a breakaway state.

The Republic of Kosovo has not been admitted into the U.N., and it is recognized by only 88 U.N. member countries (many of them NATO members or countries with Muslim populations) and one other state (Taiwan). Serbia and Russia still strongly oppose independence for Kosovo, but the list of states recognizing its sovereignty has nevertheless continued to grow. Within the last year, 13 more U.N. members have offered diplomatic recognition of Kosovan independence: Andorra, the Central African Republic, Guinea, Niger, Benin, Saint Lucia, Nigeria, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Kuwait, Uganda, Ghana, and Haiti.

Map of countries recognizing the Republic of Kosovo
Diplomatic recognition of the Republic of Kosovo. Countries that recognized Kosovan independence recently (in the last twelve months) in light green, others in dark green; Kosovo in magenta. Public domain (source).
Sources: See citations on Wikipedia's list of Entities that recognize Kosovo as an independent state.

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Abkhazia Recognized by Vanuatu

Country Name: Abkhazia (English), Apsny (Abkhaz), Abkhaziya (Russian)
Official Name: Republic of Abkhazia
News Category: Partially Recognized States, Diplomatic Recognition
Summary: The disputed breakaway state of Abkhazia has gained diplomatic recognition from Vanuatu, the fifth U.N. member to acknowledge its independence from Georgia.

Abkhazia (purple stripes) and South Ossetia (gold stripes), and their
claimed location within Georgia. Wikimedia map by Ssolbergj (CC BY-SA).
Full Story
The Republic of Abkhazia is one of seven states in the world which are recognized by some U.N. members, but not by the U.N. as a whole. Located in the Caucasus region on the border between Europe and Asia, Abkhazia is considered part of Georgia by most U.N. members; however, it has enjoyed de facto independence since winning a war of secession against the larger country in 1993. It has shared much of its fate with South Ossetia, another breakaway state which also seceded from Georgia around the same time. Abkhazia and South Ossetia passed their first decade and a half of independence without the recognition of any U.N. members. That changed after a 2008 war in which Georgia attempted to take back the two breakaway states by force, and was repelled by Russian forces. In the aftermath of the war, both Abkhazia and South Ossetia received diplomatic recognition from Russia, as well as from the Central American Republic of Nicaragua. The next year, South America's Venezuela and the Pacific island country of Nauru followed suit. The two breakaway republics are also recognized by each other and at least two other non-U.N. member states.
U.N. members recognizing Abkhazia shown in green. Vanuatu circled in green, Abkhazia circled in pink.
Modified from this map by Wikimedia user NuclearVacuum (license: CC BY-SA).
This summer, Abkhazia received recognition from a fifth U.N. member, the Republic of Vanuatu. For the first time, South Ossetia was not recognized along with Abkhazia. Vanuatu is a Pacific island country of a quarter-million people, formerly known as the New Hebrides, which won independence from Britain and France in 1980. Vanuatu's recognition of Abkhazia this year was accompanied by a great deal of confusion. Negotiated in secret between the two states, the recognition agreement was first announced to the public at the end of May. However, government officials in Vanuatu gave differing reports on whether or not the agreement existed, with confirmation finally coming on June 7. Making things even more complicated, Vanuatu's temporary prime minister withdrew recognition of Abkhazia on June 19, but it was reinstated on July 12 after the return of the permanent head of government.

Wikipedia: Abkhazia, Vanuatu, International Recognition of Abkhazia & South Ossetia