2018, backward year for Kosovo

Moreover, according to them, Kosovo has faced the dilemma of whether some of the countries that have recognised its independence have drawn those recognitions.

Government officials have stressed that during 2018 there have been 12 states that have drawn their recognitions to Kosovo, while Kosovo government officials have rejected such a thing, calling it aggressive propaganda of Serbia to undermine Kosovo's international subjectivity.

Taulant Kryeziu of the Kosovo Institute for European Policy (EPIK), speaking of Radio Free Europe, says the biggest problem is the very fact that it has become a controversial question of whether any country has made a political decision about recognition or not of the state of Kosovo.
We're not even when we're talking about new acquaintances anymore. Since we've had 12 recognitions in 2012, look at how the level of recognition has fallen year after year. In 2018 and 2017, we have a country recognition. So, in this context, I see that we are already in a defensive phase, just to create a kind of environment so we don't have at least a political decision to recognize from certain countries. The issue of new recognitions from other countries is no longer being discussed”, Kryeziu stressed.
Knowing and Knowing

The question of whether specific countries have drawn their recognition of Kosovo has become a topic of discussion, except in public opinion, even within Kosovo institutions.
On December 19th, Kosovo's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Behgjet Pacolli, answering parliamentary Commission for Foreign Affairs questions, has dismissed the Serbian authorities' claims that 12 countries have drawn recognitions for Kosovo. However, he has acknowledged that a country has sent a verbal note for attracting recognition.

Kosovo's “Republic has a total of 116 recognitions witnessed with 116 verbal notes, which were issued by the respective states on behalf of the Republic of Kosovo. The knowledge and verbal notes have come to us. So far, no verbal note, except for the Solomon Islands, has come to us, where it says that we are withdrawing recognition, we are withdrawing from relations with Kosovo or something else”, Pacolli said.

However, he has stressed that there are some of the countries that review or have frozen their stance on Kosovo as well as on Serbia.

On the other hand, Serbia's Government Foreign Affairs Minister Ivica Dacic said days ago about a Serbian media that Serbian diplomacy has influenced the withdrawal of recognitions of countries designated for Kosovo.

“are 12 countries that have attracted Kosovo's accession. As for this, we have the situation that has a number of countries that we do not know whether they have recognised Kosovo or not. Even they do not know”, Dachic stressed.

Otherwise, Africa Hoti, professor of International Law at the University of Pristina, tells Radio Free Europe that, in the theoretical sense of international law, there is no such thing as recognizing or attracting to the recognition of a country that has recognised it earlier. Yet, according to him, from places that he claims to have unstable systems, the act of recognizing or attracting recognition is being presented as phenomenon. This phenomenon, he says, reflects political positions or circumstances rather than having any practical effect on international law.

But, as Professor Hoti points out, the very discussion about Kosovo's recognition in some of the world's countries creates the negative effect in relation to Kosovo, because they hold the decisions of certain states, which may have known Kosovo so far.
The effect of these actions is limited to the fact that decisions and allegations are made mainly for small states, which do not matter in international law. The situation would be quite different, if what is already being known as recognition was undertaken by powerful states such as Great Britain, France, Austria, and so on and for which, fortunately, we have not had a case of”, Hoti said.

Otherwise, not rarely, connoisseurs and political developments have stressed that the dialogue on normalising relations between Kosovo and Serbia in Brussels is damaging Kosovo to strengthening international subjectivity, because dialogue has been misused by the Serbian state and its diplomacy, saying dialogue is developing for the definition of Kosovo's status.

Serbia misused dialogue against Kosovo

That is what Foreign Minister Pacolli, who has stressed that Serbia, before other countries, has distorted the meaning and mission of dialogue.
“As you can see, dialogue and this alarm distributed around the world for dialogue has certainly affected. Serbs are using a very tactical approach, always empowering Resolution 1244 and saying that this is United Nations Resolution and that we are dialogueing with Kosovo and that any intervention here harms dialogue, so it's good to withdraw from this. That's the sodium that's been created by Serbs. We, in turn, have taken every measure to show them that this is not the case”, Pacolli stressed.

That dialogue has been used with confusing nationalism from Serbia in the face of potential countries to recognise Kosovo, the analyst Kryeziu also estimates. For more, as he says, this disorientation has also contributed to support in Kosovo and the idea of defining the border with Serbia, and that Kosovo President Hashim Thaci has named it border correction.

Absolutely yes. The moment they (Serbs) have achieved that this scenario that is slowly, because the issue of citizenship has not yet been defined and we are the ones who define or define the rounding of Kosovo's citizenship, it is sufficient that third countries hesitate to recognise Kosovo as the subject of international law. They may say these two states are still discussing something that is territory, while territory constitutes one of the three basic elements for recognising the citizenship of a country”, Kryeziu noted.

However, Kosovo Government officials have earlier stressed that the executive has been activating its diplomatic mechanisms to cope with Serbia's diplomatic aggression. Serbia's aggressive diplomacy, they say, has not only manifested itself with efforts to prevent new recognitions and obstacles to Kosovo's membership in international organisations and mechanisms, but Belgrade is continuing to ask the countries assigned to withdraw Kosovo state recognitions.