By Xinhua
Stockholm : Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt announced Tuesday that Sweden will recognize Kosovo as an independent country.
A final decision on formal recognition of the breakaway province of Serbia will be made at a special cabinet meeting scheduled for Tuesday afternoon, Reinfeldt said after meeting with an advisory council.
Noting that such a decision will be fraught with difficulties, the prime minister said his government’s final decision will be guided by the fact that Kosovo had been under UN control since 1999.
Kosovo, a southern autonomous province within Serbia before the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, unilaterally declared its independence on Feb. 17.
Sweden is the second European country to speak about its plan to recognize Kosovo after the Czech Republic, which said Sunday the country will eventually recognize Kosovo if certain conditions were fulfilled.
“An independent Kosovo can be recognized only if there is a guarantee of law and order, protection of minorities and cultural heritage,” Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek told Czech Television Sunday.
Topolanek also warned of a rash decision on such a recognition and suggested that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should be authorized to oversee order in Kosovo in case of violence.
The United States and some major European countries already have recognized Kosovo’s independence, while Serbia and Russia voiced strong opposition to it. Serbia had threatened to file lawsuits at the International Court of Justice against the United States and all other countries that have recognized Kosovo.
An Albanian-dominated region, Kosovo was plunged into ethnic conflict in the 1990s and had been under UN administration since mid-1999, after NATO air strikes forced Serbia to pull its forces out of the province.