Kosovo failed Monday in its bid to gain membership of the UN cultural body UNESCO, coming up a few votes short of the two-thirds majority required.
Ninety-two UNESCO member states voted in favour, with 50 against and 29 abstentions.
Kosovo needed 95 votes for its bid to succeed.
“The General Conference votes against the adoption of the resolution,” said the session’s president Stanley Mutumba Simataa after the vote at UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris.
UNESCO’s executive board recommended last month to accept Kosovo as a member, despite it not being a UN member state.
But Serbia, which considers Kosovo the cradle of its identity and religion, was strongly opposed and tried earlier in the day to delay the vote.
