stopped recognising

Of course they didn’t. But this is about an initial recognition. This one feels unseemly to me personally.

Not saying it’s wrong in principle. It certainly feels like a “sympathy recognition”, much like Kosovo and indeed Timor Leste itself. But in those cases the putative independent states were not run (even partly) by religious extremists with overtly genocidal intentions.

Still, I will agree that things are not black and white.