Macedonian Foreign Minister Bujar Osmani has expressed serious doubts that the Joint Bulgarian-Macedonian Commission on Historical and Educational Affairs will reach an agreement, so he suggested "everyone interpret their history as they see fit," the Albanian-language broadcaster was quoted as saying,skopje's Alsat-M TV.
"The approach of imposing history as a criterion and reaching an agreement on an absolute historical truth 100 or 70 years ago is not the path that two European NATO member states should have as the only perspective for co-operation," Osmani said.
At a briefing, he described as irrational the approach to establishing history and cited as an example that former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva demanded a new agreement, according to which the Macedonian language is derived from Bulgarian and the Macedonian nation was created after Bulgaria tried to liberate it from the Ottoman Empire. . Officially, Skopje rejected such a proposal.
As European integration is stalled, Osmani expects increased momentum in talks with Sofia following Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov's visit to the country in January. Contrary to President Stevo Pendarovski, who called for no haste, Osmani said neither haste nor delay would affect the quality of the decision.
"We want something that is ours and deserved, and I don't think we should leave room for this issue to slowly enter a frozen conflict," Osmani said.
Osmani revealed that Skopje has responded to the "5 + 1 proposal" and that it agrees to the request that Bulgarians be included in the country's constitution while negotiations with Brussels are under way. However, unlike Deputy Prime Minister Nikola Dimitrov, Osmani is reticent about Skopje's involvement in the process.
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