Kosovo officials and media on May 6 said that the International Monetary Fund Board of Directors has approved Kosovo's application for membership. The board secretly voted on Kosovo's IMF membership application on May 5.

Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci told reporters on May 6 that the government was notified that Kosovo's bid for admission to the IMF is on track. Kosovo state TV reported that 100 out of 185 IMF members voted to accept Kosovo, adding that the results will be unveiled on May 8.

President Boris Tadic said that preventing Kosovo's inclusion in the IMF was an unlikely prospect from the start, and added this does not mean Kosovo has become an independent state.

"That is neither good nor tragic news, because a country becomes truly independent and internationally recognized in the full sense of the word only after it has become a member of the U.N.," Tadic told journalists after giving a lecture to students of the teachers college in the western Serbian town of Uzice.

Tadic pointed out that Serbia's fight to preserve its integrity is mostly limited to the U.N. and the Hague-based International Court of Justice. He added Serbia "is and always will be against Kosovo's independence."

Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic said it is realistic to expect Kosovo to gain IMF membership, but stressed that the government will continue to insist that Kosovo must not become a U.N. member.

"The majority of states have not acknowledged Kosovo, but those that have hold the majority of capital in the IMF, which is why it is realistic to expect Kosovo's accession," Cvetkovic said.

Deputy Prime Minister Mladjan Dinkic said Serbia did everything it could to express its opposition to the announced admission of Kosovo by the IMF. "We are not changing our stand on Serbia's sovereignty and if Kosovo becomes a member of the IMF, then it will certainly have to pay its share of the debt," Dinkic said in Kragujevac.

He said that Serbia has opposed Kosovo's accession to the IMF, although, as he put it, membership of international financial institutions does not equal sovereignty.