Wrote: Fatbardh Dema
Through a TikTok post, it was claimed that Syria has recognized Kosovo as a state.
"Breaking News. Syria recognizes Kosovo as a state, Kosovo Embassy will open in Damascus very soon," is the caption that the account "pogradeccii" captioned a photo of the new Syrian leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, in the publication made on January 4.
The truth?
Syria has not yet recognized Kosovo as a state. This is confirmed by the list of recognitions in the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, in which Israel's 2021 recognition remains the last.
The TikTok post has so far received over 97 thousand views and nearly 3600 likes.
Hibrid.info has researched in Albanian through the search engine "Google" to find a credible source for this information, but search results they have not encountered anything like this.
Even if content is requested for Kosovo in website of the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is no information about recognition.
What happened in Syria?
Following a rapid uprising by rebel forces in Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has fled the country, ending more than 50 years of rule by his family (details: BBC)
Ahmed al-Sharaa has been the de facto leader of Syria since 8 December 2024 (details).
Unlike Syria, Kosovo has been recognized as a state by 117 countries (Complete list).
This is not the first time that hibrid.info has covered posts related to Syria from this TikTok account. A few days ago, this account published false content claiming that al-Sharaa had stated that his grandfather was of Albanian descent (see here)
Analyze:
The TikTok account "pograddeccii" has claimed that Syria has recognized Kosovo as a state.
But based on the list of recognitions on the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kosovo, this turns out to be untrue.
Such a claim was not found in other credible sources, and there is no such information on the website of the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Therefore, based on its work methodology, hibrid.info assesses this content as "Fake News".
Reasoning:
The “Fake News” rating is given to informational content that is entirely fabricated or that contains factually incorrect claims or information. Content that is rated as fake news can be defined as having been created and distributed with the intent to misinform the public, i.e., to present a claim that is completely false as fact.