The process of Serbization, as you call it, took a long time, Vlado Buckovski, the special representative of the government for overcoming the dispute with Bulgaria, told BGNES.

Macedonia has been independent for 30 years. But let us not forget that from 1941 to 1991 we were part of the Yugoslav federation. We are aware that things cannot change overnight, Buckovski said.

He said he saw the Friendship Agreement as an additional opportunity to correct some of the injustices inflicted by politicians in the past century on the two closest peoples in this part of Europe.

Asked why Macedonia is trying to change the identity of the deceased who claimed to be Bulgarians, Buckovski said that part of the problem we have is respect for our common past.

It is a difficult battle, but we will win. We owe this to the generations of the past who built bridges together. This is what our agreement says: the common future should be our bridge. We do all this for future generations, including re-reading history, searching for common events and personalities that connect us, aligning textbooks. This is part of the package that is being negotiated and the Macedonian side has a proposed solution, said Buckovski.

Based on this, by building this trust, according to him, we will deal much faster with the insults inflicted by individuals.

This is not an official policy of our country – to make incidents that cause damage. The country is ready to react so as not to repeat similar things that have been observed recently after the blockade of Bulgaria, which actually led to the freezing of relations, which were on the rise in 2017, said the chief negotiator of the Macedonian government.