Kosovo does not (quite) make the cut for UNESCO membership

As reported on this blog last month, Kosovo has been assiduously pursuing UNESCO membership in recent months in the face of stiff Serbian resistance. However, its efforts were not enough to garner sufficient support at the Agency's general assembly in Paris this week, and its bid fell just 3 votes shy of the 95 needed for recognition.

Serbia's opposition focussed on Kosovo's alleged failure to protect Serbian cultural and religious sites, including four UNESCO world heritage sites.

With the New York Times reporting "quiet sadness in the streets of Pristina", observers expect that Kosovo will make another attempt at membership at UNESCO's next general assembly.

More conflict at the UNESCO Executive Board meeting

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict was not the only source of enmity at this week's meeting of the UNESCO Executive Board in Paris. Reverberations of Yugoslavia's disintegration were also felt as Kosovo lobbied successfully to have its bid to become a full member state recommended to proceed to a final vote at UNESCO's general conference in November, despite fierce opposition by Serbia and its allies. 

In reaction to the Executive Board's decision Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic aptly characterized the binary view of national heritage which seems to go hand in hand with nationalist rivalry the world over: "The aim is to falsify history and to create a new state, a national and cultural identity which implies the total extinction of everything that testifies about the Serb presence [in Kosovo],"