After the second round of voting, Kosovo was short of the two-thirds majority of the present Interpol member countries needed to become a part of the international police organisation, media reported on Friday.
In the first round, 76 states supported Pristina's membership while 56 countries were against and 22 abstained.
In the second round of voting 68 states were pro-Kosovo’s membership, 51 against and 16 abstained.
#Kosovo fails second round as well. 68 votes pro, 51 against and 16 states have abstained. More details to come.
— Arbër Selmani (@arberiani) November 20, 2018
Belgrade sees this as a great victory since high-ranking Serbia’s officials have said the pressure from some Western countries has been strong for Kosovo to join Interpol.
Serbia’s Interior Minister Nebojsa Stefanovic who bitterly opposed putting Kosovo’s potential membership on the agenda celebrated the result by writing ‘victory” (Pobeda) on his Twitter account.
— Небојша Стефановић (@NesaStefanovic) November 20, 2018
Ahead of the voting procedure, a professor of Belgrade Faculty of Security Studies said that “putting this issue on agenda of the Interpol General Assembly meeting is a violation of the organisation's statute which says only a UN member state can be admitted to Interpol.”
Zoran Dragisic told the Prva TV there was “an atmosphere of pressure to forcibly accept Kosovo into Interpol.” He added that proof to that was an unusual voting procedure in two rounds “in case Kosovo fails in the first attempt.”
Dragisic added that Russia was in favour of the agenda including Kosovo’s issue at the Executive Committee meeting.
