The President of the Parliamentary Commission for Foreign Relations and VMRO MP Antonijo Miloshoski has extended an invitation to Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani and Vice Premier Nikola Dimitrov to disclose documents and proposals that have been exchanged in the Macedonia-Bulgaria dialog.
This is not Miloshoski’s only time calling for transparency in what is a crucial foreign policy matter for the country. Both Osmani or Dimitrov have avoided his previous invitations to participate in the relevant commission in Parliament and inform MPs about the progress of the talks.
In his letter, Miloshoski states that the Vice Premier for European Relations and the Foreign Minister have an obligation to respond to questions from MPs, in accordance with principles of governance and the standards that are observed by EU member states.
The Macedonian political arena does not have a unified position regarding the negotiations with Bulgaria. Miloshoski has emphasized that Dimitrov and Osmani have given different statements, where the former recently called for a break from the activities with Bulgaria while the latter suggested to intensify the talks.
On January 13, the SDSM-led government announced it has replaced one of the negotiators in the Commission on history, which is a crucial arena in the Macedonia-Bulgaria negotiations. Aleksandar Litovski from the Nation History Institute has been replaced by Isamedin Azizi from the same institution.
In a recent interview on Slobodna TV, Litovski stated that the solution of the problem with Bulgaria is not to make endless concessions. Litovski criticized Zaev’s interview for BGNES and stated that Bulgaria is expecting that historic commission will concede that Macedonians have Bulgarian roots, which is a Bulgarian strategy since the San Stefano dream of a Greater Bulgara.
Litovski’s replacement, Azizi, has a master and doctoral dissertation dealing with the subject of Albanians in the Balkans.
Unlike the Macedonian government, their Bulgarian colleagues have “a more or less unified position” across the political divide, according to the country’s foreign minister Ekaterina Zakharieva.
