Yahoo - AFP, 9 Dec 2014
Kosovo Albanians wave the Kosovo flag during a celebration marking the 4th anniversary of Kosovo's declaration of independence in Pristina on February 17, 2012 (Photo by Armend Nimani) |
The
International Olympic Committee on Tuesday gave official recognition to Kosovo
allowing its athletes to take part in the 2016 Rio Olympics.
The IOC
executive recognised the former Serbian province, which declared its
independence in 2008, in October.
"This
is one big day," Besim Hasani, president of the Kosovo Olympic Committee,
told the IOC session.
"This
is the beginning of a new era for the Olympic movement in Kosovo."
"Now
they can start to prepare for Rio," IOC president Thomas Bach said after
the decision was agreed unanimously by the full 104-member assembly.
Serbia
refuses to accept the independence of Kosovo, where NATO-led airstrikes were
used in 1999 to stop an offensive by Serbian forces against ethnic-Albanian
separatists.
Bach said
that Serbia had accepted Kosovo's membership "in the interests of the
athletes."
However, in
Belgrade Serbia's Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic "strongly condemned the
decision" and "presents an abuse and politicisation of sport."
"We
consider it unacceptable and contrary to the Olympic Charter" according to
which a new member could be "an independent state recognised by the entire
international community," Dacic said in a statement.
In
Pristina, Memli Krasniqi, Kosovo Sport Minister said the decision "finally
ends a very long period of injustice and discrimination and isolation which has
plagued Kosovo's sports community for more than two decades."
Kosovo is
now the 205th member of the IOC and its 50th member from Europe.
Kosovo's
Olympic committee has 30 sporting federations as members and six -- table
tennis, archery, judo, yachting, weightlifting and modern pentathlon -- are
full members of international federations. Seven more are close to being
recognised.
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