The Republic of Serbia condemns most strongly today’s decision by the International Olympic Committee to grant Kosovo’s national Olympic Committee full membership of this Organization. Serbia finds this decision unacceptable and unprincipled, and believes that this act is in violation of the Olympic Charter, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic stated.

The Olympic Charter envisages that the membership applicant should come from an independent state recognized by the entire international community. By making such a decision, the IOC has breached its current practice requiring the applicant to have UN membership.
Such an act is an abuse and tendentious politicization of sports, and the International Olympic Committee, as a universal organization devoted to the development of sports and enhancement of understanding and friendship, has assumed the role of a political arbiter.
The Republic of Serbia believes that the International Olympic Committee should not be a forum where controversial political decisions that spawn significant disagreements in the international framework will be made, but should contribute to unity and understanding, and not to proliferation of new divisions, First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Ivica Dacic said.