Kosovo Will Open An Embassy In Jerusalem If Israel Recognizes It As A State
Kosovo flag Image by iStock
(JTA) — Kosovo would set up an embassy in Israel if the Jewish state recognizes it as an independent state, the president of the Balkan breakaway republic said.
Hashim Thaci said this during an interview Thursday, the KosovaPress agency reported.
“If Kosovo were recognized by Israel, I would place the Kosovo embassy in Jerusalem,” Thaci is quoted as saying in an interview with the Real Story news show.
The United States and dozens of other countries have recognized Kosovo, a Muslim-majority country, as a state since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008.
But opposition by Russia and China have kept Kosovo from getting U.N. membership.
Israel, Spain, India, Morocco and Ukraine are among the key countries that have not recognized Kosovo, reportedly out of opposition to unilateral declarations of independence — including in territories they control.
Israel under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has urged repeatedly a number of countries to follow the United States’ example in May and move their embassies to Jerusalem, though so far only Guatemala and Paraguay — which this month returned its embassy to Tel Aviv amid vociferous protests by Israel — have done so.
In June, Czech President Milos Zeman joked during a speech that Netanyahu had offered to give up his own home in Jerusalem if the Czech Republic opened an embassy there.
Alyssa Fisher is a news writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
