Despite the decision of the UNESCO Executive Council to recommend Kosovo’s membership to the General Conference, Serbia’s Ambassador to UNESCO Darko Tanaskovic estimated Serbia’s chances as “not small”, to block Kosovo’s admission into the UNESCO.
-The results of voting at the meeting of the Executive Council convincingly confirmed that the planning and intense diplomatic activity in which, as in this case, are included all state and national resources, in adverse circumstances can achieve concrete results – Tanaskovic said in a statement to Tanjug.
Until the session of the General Conference of UNESCO, beginning of November, not much time is left, but as Tanaskovic said, Serbia will continue with the argumentative convincing of wide range of countries, that due to the several strong reasons shall not be acceptable to declare themselves in favour of Kosovo’s membership in UNESCO.
-Although it is not advisable to cultivate optimism without proof, I am confident that chances of Serbia are not small to prevent the admission of Kosovo in UNESCO – he says.
According to him, we cannot be satisfied with the fact that the Executive Council decided to recommend the Kosovo’s request to the General Conference of UNESCO, but “everything else, from the atmosphere to the flow of the session, the voting results and the way in which individual countries have explained their vote, is encouraging in terms of the potential productivity of the political message of what happened today at the headquarters of UNESCO in Paris.”
Tanaskovic said that Serbia should talk to everyone, if we exclude countries that from very beginning have supported the proposal of Albania to include the request of Kosovo into the agenda of the Executive Council as well as countries which, and without being asked, have shown their commitment to the Kosovo membership in UNESCO.
And, as he says, we should not forget that 195 countries make the General Conference.
Tanaskovic pointed to the example of Papua New Guinea which has co-sponsored the proposal of Albania, but their representative, not only he abstained during the vote, but has even asked the removal of the country’s name from the list of co-sponsors.
Surely, it would not have happened if, as he alleged, the highest officials of the distant Pacific countries were not explained what it was about actually. “It’s sad that it’s still not clear for some closest relatives and neighbours,” concluded Tanaskovic.
