Kosovan boxer Donjeta Sadiku risks remaining outside the World Boxing Championship for the senior category that will be held in New Delhi, India, this year due to visa problems.
Sadiku’s participation in World Boxing Champ which will be held from March 14 until 26, has still not been officially confirmed by Indian authorities, even though this event is just around the corner, VisaGuide.World reports.
Indian Ministry of External Affairs is reluctant to issue visas for Kosovars after it does not recognize the Republic of Kosovo as an independent country, while Kosovo’s Secretary of the Boxing Federation, Latif Demolli, told KosovoaPress that this is not the first time that India has banned Kosovo from becoming part of international competitions, recalling a similar situation in 2018.
However, Demolli expressed his hopes that things will be different this year, and they can head to India so that Donjeta Sadiku can participate in the World Cup with all the symbols of the Republic of Kosovo.
Still, Demolli confessed that every time they apply for a visa, they get the same answer from the Ministry of External Affairs of India.
“We applied in December last year for participation in the World Championship in India with all the necessary visa documentation, and this is the third month. We have received the same answers. We have sent e-mails to the Federation of India and the World Federation IBA daily, but they gave us the same answer. Yesterday, they told us that the issue is being discussed,” the Secretary of the Boxing Federation told Kosovapress.
The spokesperson of the Kosovo Olympic Committee (KOK), Kushtrim Krasniqi, told KosovaPress that they are in constant contact with Kosovo’s Boxing Federation and the Olympic Committee of India in order to make it easier for Sadiku to get a visa and head to India.
Kosovo declared its independence on February 17, 2008. However, a large number of countries have still not recognized the Republic of Kosovo as an independent country, thus bringing significant problems for holders of Kosovar passports to travel visa-free to many countries.
Kosovo’s passport is ranked in the 195th position in the Passport Index of VisaGuide.World, which ranks passports of a total of 199 countries, citizens of which are eligible to travel visa-free to other territories.
The Balkan country has been attempting to permit visa-free travel to European Countries for its citizens since February 19, 2012; however, even though the European Commission estimated back in 2018 that Kosovo met all the needed requirements for this process to be finished, such a thing has still not happened.
Yesterday, the Council of the EU announced that it adopted its position at first reading related to visa-free travel to EU countries for holders of Kosovo’s passports.
Still, despite the fact that the visa-liberalization process would quadruple the power of Kosovo’s passport, moving from the 195th position to the 102nd position, it would still remain at the bottom of the list, compared to passports of other Western Balkan countries, according to the Founder of VisaGuide.World, Besart Bajrami.
Bajrami also confirmed that this is a result of the fact that a large number of countries do not recognize Kosovo as an independent country, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Cuba, Belarus, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Russia, Moldova, Syria, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Venezuela.
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