Dhaka: The Cabinet on Monday approved a proposal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to give formal recognition to the Republic of Kosovo as an independent and sovereign state by Bangladesh.

The approval came from the regular weekly meeting of the Cabinet held at Bangladesh Secretariat on Monday with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the chair.

Briefing the reporters after the meeting, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said that so far, some 113 countries across the globe have given formal recognition to Kosovo and Bangladesh would be the 114th country to do so.

He mentioned that most of the Muslim majority countries have given recognition to Kosovo as some 36 out of 57 OIC countries have so far given recognition to Kosovo.

‘For this, the Cabinet has given consent to a proposal to give recognition to Kosovo,’ Alam said adding that the major countries like USA, UK and France have already recognised Kosovo.

He also said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would now formally inform Kosovo about the formal recognition by Bangladesh.

Ministers and State Ministers attended the meeting while Secretaries Concerned were present.

Kosovo unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008, after years of strained relations between its Serb and mainly Albanian inhabitants.

It has been recognised by the United States and major European Union countries, but Serbia, backed by its powerful ally Russia, refuses to do so, and neither do most ethnic Serbs inside Kosovo.

After the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Serbia responded to separatist pressure from Kosovo by launching a brutal crackdown on the territory’s Albanian population, which was only brought to an end by Nato military intervention in 1999.

Until 2008 the province was administered by the UN. Reconciliation between the majority Albanians, most of whom support independence, and the Serb minority remains elusive.