(dpa) - Poland has decided to officially recognize Kosovo as an independent state, the government announced after a cabinet meeting Tuesday.
The decision was an expression of Polish solidarity with the other EU member states as well as with the international community, the Polish government said.
Kosovo's independence was a "sui generis case and could not set a precedent for other separatist tendencies," the Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told reporters after the meeting.
Sikorski said he hoped Kosovo would honour all the commitments it had made in its independence declaration with regard to safeguarding the rights of its ethnic minority and preserving the secular nature of the state.
The United States and many European Union countries have already recognized Kosovo's February 17 declaration of independence from Serbia.
Kosovo's parliament unilaterally declared independence on February 17.