North Macedonian Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski called for a meeting between President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova and Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov on the sidelines of the NATO meeting in The Hague.

Mickoski said that the initiative for a meeting between Bulgaria and North Macedonia in The Hague came from European Council President Antonio Costa and was immediately accepted by the Macedonian side, adding that according to initial expectations, Bulgaria was to be represented in The Hague by President Rumen Radev, and not by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.

"The President of the European Council sent a proposal, which we immediately accepted, for the two presidents to sit down, with the mediation of the EU, during an event at which both sides are on an equal footing. There was an idea for (NATO) Secretary General Mark Rutte and representatives of the US administration to attend this meeting and discuss the arguments,“ Mickoski said, continuing:

”Now we are seeing a demonstration of how the Bulgarian political elite perhaps functions. Prime Minister (Zhelyazkov) attended the summit in Washington, where I was also present. It is logical for the president and prime minister to take turns, at least that is the practice, so this year President Siljanovska is there and it was logical for Bulgaria to send the president. At the last minute, the prime minister was sent instead."

Mickoski insists that if there is any initiative for a meeting at the president-prime minister level (Siljanovska and Zhelyazkov), it should be accepted.

"We must be proactive and show that the few hundred of our citizens who say that Bulgarian is their native language are not the problem, but that there is a much bigger problem. This is a decade-long policy, a strategy that has been written, discussed, and carefully crafted," the VMRO-DPMNE chairman added.

Mickoski said yesterday, June 11, that the essence of the problem is the attempt to “engineer a new Macedonian nation, which is the result of a decision by the Comintern after 1945.” | BGNES